A Vintage Heart
by writerfan2013
Summary: Molly has found a way to help her forget her ridiculous, hopeless crush on Sherlock. But as his case unfolds, Sherlock realises she is somehow involved. Sherlolly alert! Also alert for romance, 1960s musical nostalgia and many sequins. Chapter 24: Still improving. Thanks for reading and please feedback! (The playlist for this is on tube of you...) And thank you for 32000 views!
1. The ruby pin

_Didn't I make you feel_  
_Like you were the only man?_  
_Didn't I give you everything that a woman possibly can?_

Her flat is in Dean Street, tiny, first storey up in the ugly concrete block which replaced the hole left by a wartime bomb. A single space divided with cheap partition walls into bathroom, kitchen, her cluttered bedroom, and the remainder forming a poky, awkwardly shaped living-room.

There is noise at all times through the uninsulated walls, shouts and crockery smashes and ladle clangs from the Chinese restaurant next door, shrieks and laughter and traffic clamour from the street below. The uproar rather suits Molly Hooper's purposes.

She sits in her underwear - her _foundation garments_, she thinks with a smile, admiring their hefty structure - and applies an absolute ton of mascara. Too much is only the start in this case.

Twenty gold pins are lined up on her glass topped, kidney-shaped dressing table. They are all the same, except for the new one, today's first eBay arrival, which has a jewel on the end, a ruby globe with many tiny facets to catch the light. Glass, of course. It is comforting to think that even the greats, back then, wore costume jewellery. It was all they could afford, all their record companies were prepared to spend. Eat that, Rihanna: Aretha and Ronnie and Dusty in paste jewels belting out numbers like you can only dream of in your diamond-encrusted stretch Hummer.

It was a different world then, and tonight Molly will step into that world for a while, and leave this one, with its work stress and traffic fumes and mobile phones and ... she is not even going to think of him, she is ignoring him - leaving it all far behind. She smiles, turns the ruby pin over in her hand, then slides it into her piled hair, above her right ear.

They say you should not wear red with red hair, but she likes the combination. Is red something to be ashamed of, to minimise, to try to tone down or disguise? Are brunettes forbidden to wear brown? Ridiculous. Yet redheads have a whole list or proscribed items, red clothes being first on the list. And then there are the remedies. Ways to conceal freckles. Ways to make red hair look less red. Mascara and eyebrow pencil and foundation which is _right for your (probably pasty) complexion._

"Sod that_,_" she says to the mirror. "I like red and I will wear red if I want to." She lifts her chin, bats her loaded lashes at her reflection and pouts extravagantly.

The pin is already working its antique magic.

She slurps a bit of hot choc as well. With the burger she grabbed on the way home from the pathology lab, it's like a proper meal. Almost. "I'll eat at the weekend." Probably.

She opens tonight's second parcel, this one delivered direct to her flat. It is also fresh from eBay, and the seller promised that it is newly laundered and has been cared for lovingly over the last forty years.

"Oh yes," a scarlet dress, shift, heavily beaded all over. In those days, this was done by hand. Molly lifts the dress clear of its wrap and holds it up against herself. It drapes heavily, will cling, will shimmy with her. It adds weight, adds substance. There is more to her, with this dress against her skin. There is certainly zero chance of invisibility.

Perfect.

She already knows where she is going - a big benefit of living in Soho - and exactly who she is going to do.

It has been a long week already and it is only Tuesday.

She needs her relief.

* * *

She pays her tenner at the Beehive and slips past the man at the counter with her coat huddled around her. If the guy recognizes her, he never lets on. At the row of hooks -_Belongings Left at Own Risk Don't Blame Us!_ - she shivers the coat away and some of the karaoke club's punters look round as the ruby red dress is revealed. People nudge each other. _She's keen. Blimey._ And even,_ Wow._

Then one voice, a woman's, exclaims, "Oh my god. It's Billie Rae!" and Molly smiles.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

_Piece of my Heart -_ Erma Franklin


	2. The three quid question

_Oh since the day I saw you_  
_I have been waiting for you -_

You need a little something, when you work alongside him. A little secret to call your own.

As a small ripple of recognition runs through the Beehive, Molly reflects on her day:

The pathology lab is quiet, white, and smells of hygiene. Bluish lights gleam on the hard metal desks; the computers whir softly. Molly is working methodically through a tray of samples taken from the control group. It is growing late: she is just collecting data. She will begin the analysis tomorrow. This has been another long day.

"The heart drugs could not have delayed coagulation to the extent found in the body."

His voice, low and rich, breaks the silence.

She glances to her right.

He is sitting beside her, his head in the second best microscope, his own biosample, procured from the morgue, in front of his workstation. "The drugs were contaminated. Deliberately or not remains to be seen." He sounds pleased. He likes to get a result.

"A miscalculated dose of haemophilia treatment might cause a similar effect," Molly says, and then kicks herself. She is meant to be ignoring him.

He lifts his head. She tries to look away, to remain as focused on her work as he was on his, but it is too late. She sees blue eyes, dark eyelashes, a mouth too sensuous to spend so much time in a grimace of annoyance, and feels his attention fall onto her like an eiderdown billowing heavy onto an expensive hotel bed.

She breaks eye contact, writes something unintelligible in her lab book. He is absorbing her suggestion, his mind simultaneously hoovering data from her face and clothes. She darts a look back at him and they stare at each other for five beats of her heart.

He turns back to the microscope and more time passes...

"Molly. Scalpel."

She ought to go home. She has a slight headache - too much coffee today plus an accumulation of late nights.

Eighteen inches from his left hand is the scalpel.

She hands it to him. _Five years of medical school_, she thinks. _Postgrad ward walking and more qualifications. Senior position in the capital's most prestigious pathology team._

"Molly. The slide."

He is holding out his hand again, eyes focused on the slim cut he has made on his test material.

She waits.

"Please."

She places it in his palm, not quite avoiding contact with his cool skin. Draws her hand back and sits hunched, sighing.

The Lovely Debbie at least got a flattering introduction and a ripple of applause as she handed Paul Daniels the wand, the top hat or the white rabbit to vanish away. -On the other hand, Debbie had to spend her working life in a spangly leotard, not exactly striking a blow for Women's Lib.

Molly wears a beige trouser suit and pussy bow blouse, flat shoes. Not glamorous, perhaps, but the dead do not judge and these are her own clothes, no uniform: in a hospital, this is the badge of professional status, along with her actual badge which bears her name, Dr M Hooper plus her numerous qualifications and a mag stripe which is essentially _Access all areas_.

So why is she sitting here passing implements to a slender dark haired man wearing a Savile Row suit and a frown, who is paler than most of the deceased, who ignores her except when he wants help, and who, despite the hours he has clocked up lately, does not even work here?

It's not a million dollar question. Maybe a three quid one. He knows the answer, she knows it, everyone since university (his second, her first) has known it. There are two reasons: first, this man, poised and always on alert beside her, is the unique, impossible, unequalled Sherlock Holmes, and second, Molly Hooper used to be in love with him.

* * *

Sherlock frowned into his microscope for hours after that, looking directly at her again only once: "That journalist you got rid of. The one who wanted a story about me."

"That was yesterday," she says. Sherlock maintains the illusion that time means nothing to him. She knows better.

Sherlock ignores her correction. "He accused you of being a typical bad tempered redhead. 'Typical bloody ginger', was his exact phrase."

"Yes." Insult added unnecessarily to the earlier insult of turning up and trying to interview Molly about her relationship, hah, with Sherlock.

"But you don't have red hair." Sherlock's eyes shimmer as he looks at her hair, apparently memorising every strand.

Molly's hand goes to the end of her pony tail. "I do," she says. "You just can't see it very well, tied up. Tied back." His blue eyes, focused on her face. Why does he invoke these mortifying, apparently Freudian slips?

Sherlock frowns. "No doubt his journalism is as lazy as his observation. You have auburn hair." He squints at her, his head tilted. "Do auburn people also stereotypically have hot tempers?"

"I think it's all the same -"

He has bent to the microscope once more. She is dismissed.

"And it's just a cliché," she finishes. "Passionate redheads." A half giggle emerges: she clenches her jaw down on it and looks at him.

His hair is falling over his forehead. His strong, slender fingers work the focus on the scope. He smells of apples and tobacco leaf and his long legs are folded awkwardly under the lab bench.

He looks half-fed and overdressed, but Molly knows how tough he is, how he can fell your would-be attacker with one strike, how he can lift you and carry you to the nearest all night clinic as if you weighed no more than his violin, and how those fingers, suddenly gentle, can identify more quickly than the x-ray, which bone in your wrist was fractured during the struggle with the creep who tried to pin you down.

She has known Sherlock a long time, and even though he never gives her a reason, she keeps proving the stereotype right, because she cannot be indifferent to him, and even hurt and bitterness are full of passion.

She stands. "I'm off now."

He is biting his lip at his screen.

"Night then."

No reply.

Another body is being wheeled in as she leaves but her junior, Harjit, will deal with it. Molly needs her relief.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

_Be My Baby_ - The Ronettes

And I made up the line about haemophilia drugs. It just seemed like the kind of counterintuitive thing that would exist in medicine.


	3. Audible perfume

_So live_

_Love_

_While the flame is strong_

_For we may not be the young ones very long_

* * *

Molly walks to the Beehive's bar, slowly. In this dress you do everything slowly. A woman in this dress moves with deliberate grace. The dress demands it. So do the shoes, which are punishing.

She smiles at the girl behind the bar, who exclaims and says, "Hiya, didn't know you were in tonight."

"Just got here."

"White wine?"

"Please."

"On the house," says the girl, and Molly smiles gratefully. The chilled Soave glugs into a large glass and Molly carries it to a table in the middle, attracting a lot of attention as she does.

Once she is seated she looks around to see if anyone else is in. It's a reasonable throng tonight, plenty of students as always, a few dates, and, yes, some of the vintage crowd. There's Vic, in trilby, braces and blue pinstripes. That girl with the hair lacquered to within an inch of its life and a (yellow, tonight) polka dot tea dress. An interesting looking couple in a shift dress and Cliff Richard suit respectively. She nods at everyone who catches her eye, and sips the wine.

A young girl is on the stage murdering _Teenager in Love_. It's a supportive kind of place, so the girl gets polite applause as well as whoops from her friends. Then Vic goes up, silver hair shining under the lights as he doffs his trilby. He does a couple of Howling Wolf numbers. Anything goes, here, so long as it's vintage.

Molly gets the clipboard – brought to her by Phil the manager, as soon as word goes round that she's in tonight - and fills in her choices, sends it back to the stage. Very quickly her number is called.

She stands, people peering to see who's next, and touches the ruby pin in her hair. It is in place. She takes a breath and sashays to the stage, climbs up slowly, allowing the audience the full benefit of the shift dress over her bottom. Why not? It's a nice dress, and in it, the bottom's not bad either.

"Hello," she says, smiling shyly into the mock-sixties Fatboy microphone as the music man keys up her piece. Out of sheer habit she adjusts the mike stand to suit her height.

The opening bars of _Love Letters_ ring out across the room, and she takes a breath, smiles, opens her lips and starts to sing.

* * *

It is not 2013. Fifty years slip away into the blurred faces of the crowd as notes fill her, resonant, smoky, raw edges of hurt and longing spilling into her voice as she sings the story of love despite separation. The lyrics scroll past on a small monitor at her feet but she does not need them.

Beyond the stage the men might all be neat suited, short back and sides, some of the racier ones sporting hair curling onto their collars. The women might have gloves folded over their handbags and tailored coats with matching small hats being tended by the coat-check girl, and low court shoes, two and a half inches maximum, like the Queen.

In reality the room would have been filled with the smoke of a hundred cigarettes, but Phil has turned up the dry ice to give a similar level of dinge. Through the haze Molly sees people at the bar, turning round at the sound of her voice; people shuffle closer to the stage; after the first couple of lines during which the various conversations continue around the room, people fall silent and sit watching and listening.

Off to the side of the small stage, Phil, dapper in a mod/mobster pinstripe getup, is grinning. Molly glances sideways at him through her lashes and gives him a knowing look and a little shimmy. He practically faints onto the sound desk.

Ah, the ruby pin and the scarlet dress and the sweet seductive notes of the song. Who could resist? (_Only one person, and he is not here. Sing._)

Molly sings low and lets the microphone do its work. You don't need to shout, to yell to the back of the room, with a number like this and the mike switched on. Just let the melody find its own level and watch as its caress touches every face in the room, like audible perfume, like gaseous emotion.

* * *

After her turn people come up and talk to her.

"I saw you here a couple of weeks ago, you did that Dusty Springfield one, it was amazing!" A girl, student vintage, market stall and charity shop finds customised with her own stitching and beading. Art student, Molly thinks.

"Where _did_ you learn to do that darling? It was as if fifty years fell from my body and I was svelte all over again. Simply _divine_." A stout, heavily perfumed woman of somewhere between sixty and ninety, resplendent in enormous shades and a feather boa.

"That was great, now I have to have a go myself. You've given me the nerve to do it!" A woman in her thirties, dressed as Molly might were she not on stage: jeans, little heels, sparkly top.

"Go for it," Molly tells her. "It's the best thing I've ever done." She means it, and the woman goes away grinning.

Phil leans across with a satisfied grin. "The place is buzzing. Any song you want, I can get it. Forget the catalogue. Sing anything."

She blushes. Touches the ruby pin, her new lucky charm. "I'll have a think." Phil stands for a moment as if about to say something else, then goes off to work the music for the next punter. He glances back and Molly gives him a cheery wave.

Vic buys her a drink and they sit together, quietly critiquing the other singers and giggling at their own bitchiness when the effort on stage is too dreadful to be constructive about.

The couple she saw earlier, dressed in retro gear, come and sit down with them. "I'm Tony," says the bloke. He is around thirty, thirty five maybe, and nice looking: blonde hair, cut very short at the back, era-appropriate quiff at the front, easy smile, crinkles around the eyes.

"I'm Virginia," says the woman. "Gin." She is older, early forties Molly guesses, and has dyed red hair. She was aiming for Mary Quant but the unsubtle red colour and coarse fibres of her hair have marred the intended effect. The clothes are good though: Molly instantly covets the white patent knee boots.

"Gin and Tony" says Tony. "Gin and Tonic, we're a double act."

"Oh," says Molly. "I get it."

"I see what you've done there," says Vic.

They all chuckle a little awkwardly because the name is so terrible.

"You have a great voice," says Gin. "I haven't seen you here before."

"I don't usually come on Tuesdays." No: usually she can at least hold out until Thursday before she snaps and puts on the mascara.

"Bad day, was it?" asks Tony, and he has guessed so accurately that Molly just says "Yes."

Gin laughs "We're the same. A few too many difficult customers and we're straight down here after. On with the slap, on with the clobber and out we come. It's not always here though. We do the Pinstripe Bar, most nights." Molly knows it, has been a few times, but it does not have such a good atmosphere as the Beehive. There was some trouble there, a year or so ago – a fight onstage apparently, which turned nasty - and she rarely goes back.

"Just fancied a change," says Tony. He is gazing at Molly, taking in the careful make up, the genuine shoes and the absolutely genuine dress. His eyes linger on the sequins, especially those over her waist. And her bust.

"Billie Rae's a sensation," says Vic. He gives Molly a little twinkle.

Molly elbows him.

"Is that your name?" Gin asks.

"Of course it's not," says Tony. "Stage name, right? Air of mystery? I get it."

"It's from the first song I ever sang on stage," she says. "_Son of a preacher man_. I said it as a joke afterwards and it stuck. I changed the spelling, made it a girl's name."

"What's your real name?" Gin asks. She is gazing fixedly at Molly, her hands clutching her vodka and coke so tightly that her knuckles are showing through her skin.

"I just go by Billie Rae when I'm out," Molly says. "It's easier. I'm usually so tired after work that I can't keep two identities straight in my head." She giggles and they go for it: tired, a little drunk, none too bright. No real name.

"What is your work then?" Tony asks.

"I work in a lab," she says.

"Oh," they say politely, and predictably lose interest.

He is a plumber, she a dental assistant. They have been singing in clubs, semi professional, for years. They met when Tony was still at school.

Molly does not ask, but she gets the impression that Gin was his teacher, or Scout leader, or held some other similar position of privilege when they met. That she seduced him, or he her, and they have been together ever since. It's in the way Gin watches him, her eyes possessive and insecure. The downside of dating a younger man. Or any good-looking man. You have to be pretty sure of him or you'd run yourself mad wondering if he loved you enough to stay with you.

Obviously not a mistake Molly will get the chance to make.

Is she wise, or is she unlucky? The wine is making her philosophical. Time for more singing. She stands, and catches Phil's eye. He jumps to cue up her next music. For karaoke, this place is pretty slick.

And as she stands, people turn and murmur expectantly.

"Are you doing another one?" Tony asks.

"Yes," Molly says. The melodies were filling her up today. They need to come out, with their burden of heartache and longing.

"What?"

"Wait and see." She simpers: they chuckle. Vic pats her arm proudly.

This is so easy, in costume. She would never behave like this among strangers, normally. But here she is not herself. She is Billie Rae, and somewhat known here, and she can tease and even flirt a little (with Vic, who is a terrible flirt and old enough to be her dad) and none of it matters, none of it is part of her so called real life, the life with white coats and dissections and murdered people on a slab waiting for their families to come and confirm that the worst has finally happened.

She does _Seven Day Fool_ and gets a big round of applause.

Gin and Tony do _The Young Ones_ and Tony has a beautiful voice. Gin's harmonies are a little off, like she has a cold. But she looks good, and Tony looks great. He even stands right: feet still, body angled forward to the microphone, head turning side to side to take in the audience as he sings. It might be Cliff standing there, in 1961.

"If Cliff had brought his mum to do backing vocals," Vic whispers when Molly says this, and Molly shushes him.

They are enjoying a bit of Cilla Black courtesy of two students in over the top minidresses and beehives, when Polka dot girl appears at Molly's side.

"Can I ask a favour?"

"What's up?" The girl looks upset. Molly has never learned the girl's name and suspects that, like Molly herself, the girl keeps her retro karaoke a secret – she is probably a barrister or MP and doesn't want the constituents finding out she spends her evenings in a dim nightclub singing along to ancient ballads...

Polka dot girl sits down. "I've lost my clip. I must have put it down on my table when I went to the loo and now it's gone. You know, the one with the bow."

Of course. The giant yellow polka dot bow which matches her dress. And her shoes, Molly now sees. Extreme attention to detail.

"Have you got any hairpins I can borrow?" asks the girl.

"Of course." Molly rummages in her handbag. "Here." She passes over handful of pins and clips. "Let me help, it's so fiddly doing the back."

They work around her head weaving the updo back into place. "I'm Billie Rae," says Molly with a smile as they clip and pin.

"I know. I'm Dee."

They smile at each other.

"You're good," Molly says. "I love your Doris Day."

"I love everything you do," says Dee. She has brown hair and brown eyes and a turned up nose and looks so much the part in her rock and roll gear that it is hard to believe she is, what - thirty? Around Molly's own age. "It's so soulful," Dee adds. "I wish I had your, thingummy, your _depth_."

Molly blushes.

"Do you go to the Blues Bar? Kingly Street?"

"Not yet." She has never even heard of it. It must not be a karaoke place, those are the only places she really knows.

"I'm going tomorrow. Come with me. It'll be great. I can give you your clips back." Dee smiles winningly. "I'll have a different dress on. Have to make another bow for this one." She grimaces. "Say yes - we can sit in our finery and soak up some dark blue sorrow. With some beer. or wine, if that's your thing."

Molly cannot resist such persuasiveness. She smiles. "OK. I'm on call tomorrow though. I'll have my pager with me."

Dee holds up her own. "Snap. The curse of the IT manager."

They laugh, and Dee goes on stage and does some Brenda Lee with her usual panache. Molly claps enthusiastically at the end and gets a grateful smile. And that, really, is what this is all about: people appreciate the fact that you have put in the effort, got the details right, that you care.

There are not many arenas in life where caring gets a round of applause, but Molly has found this one and cannot imagine, now, living without it.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

_The Young Ones_ – Cliff Richard and the Shadows

And the Blues Bar does exist, or did. The one Dee refers to is the one in my head, in about 1995.


	4. The weight of a stare

_Sometimes I feel, I feel a little sad inside _

_When my baby mistreats me, I never, never, never have a place to hide _

_I need you_

* * *

She is ignoring him again.

Sherlock moves just his eyes and looks at Molly. She appears completely normal, that is, what used to be normal. Saggy clothes hiding her slim body; hair in a pony tail (three days in a row); shadows under her eyes showing through a heavy layer of concealer (make-up not quite the right shade for her skin).

Yet her attention is elsewhere. Not on her work. And not on him. That is not normal at all.

There is something happening here which he does not understand. Usually she is aware of him at every moment, her eyes flicking to him whenever he moves, drawn mostly to his face, his eyes, his mouth, but also his hands – she spends hours looking at his hands while he is working – and occasionally his legs, under the table.

But today she has been completely focused on something else. She is pretending to concentrate on her work, head bent, rarely looking at him even when he lifts his head to stare at her. (He always wondered if a gaze had any physical weight, if light reflected back into retinas could actually hold matter, because whenever he stares at people they seem able to feel it. He has not read enough physics to know if this is possible, although it does not seem beyond what is already claimed.) But today, although he looks and looks, Molly does not react.

This will be resolved, of course, but for the moment he is taken aback, surprised that he has not already worked it out, surprised too that Molly has secrets – what for? - and a little surprised, too, that he is now determined to find out what the secrets are.

It is because he is bored, of course. In the normal run of things this would be a moment's distraction, a mild form of entertainment like guessing (deducing) the occupational histories of everyone on a bus. But without John there is a lot less to fill the day. It is odd, because John was not usually there in the day in any case, and yet his small contributions have meant a lot to Sherlock, and he misses them, and John.

John still comes round, is even planning on holding his work's leaving party at Baker Street, but of course it is not the same.

Sherlock has already decided that he ought to seek out another flatmate, another John in a way, although that would then displace what is left of the existing John, and that might cause awkwardness. He knows this without existing John having to tell him: he has learned. Maybe it is this which he has missed – the learning. He never had someone to learn from before, to help him absorb the tiny things, the unimportant (to him) things which he otherwise would miss or ignore. Having John meant always having someone to reflect off. He misses that too.

He will ask John, initially, for help with finding someone likely to tolerate him. It is not just the violin playing, he knows. It is the everything. The _him_. He needs to find someone who – like John – simply does not mind.

The obvious candidate is sitting across the lab from him with her mind on something truly fascinating and nothing to do with the extremely dull petri dishes in front of her, or the (actually very interesting) man at the next workstation. But he does not want to fell her with an outright suggestion and he lacks the capacity for subtle hints. It will wait.

And what is it that Molly is hiding?

Sherlock has seen more of her lately. Has spent more time in the lab lately. He thought – given she always seemed very interested in him – that Molly would be pleased by this. But she is not. Clearly she is not. She is irritated by his presence, like a person with nettle rash. She keeps reaching to scratch it and then remembering that she must not. He has seen her bite back retorts, often, this last few weeks. She wishes he wouldn't keep coming here, or not as often, or - not in the same way-?

That is a pity. He likes the morgue, and the labs attached. It is a quiet place, he can concentrate, he can basically do whatever he wants, and of course there is a ready supply of materials to examine.

He wonders if Molly has got into trouble for procuring body parts for him.

"Molly," he says with his head in the microscope.

"Mmn?" She is now doing tox tests, careful work with mask, safety specs, gloves, pipettes and the angle lamp shone straight down onto her station.

"Have I got you into trouble?"

A pause. "What?"

"Letting me work in here. Is it causing you a problem?" Too late, the angle of her head tells him that he ought to have been more specific in his question. "You give me access to the bodies," he explains. "Have you been reprimanded for that?"

"No," she says. "And if I was I would just tell them to ring Greg Lestrade."

She bends over the tray again, her auburn ponytail dropping forward over her right shoulder. Her hazel eyes are hidden by her heavily mascara-ed lashes.

Sherlock considers this. Lestrade, the fixer-? It is possible. The man is amazingly senior for someone who relies so heavily on outside (unpaid) assistance. And in spite of himself, Sherlock knows that Lestrade defended him, his reputation, when it was cast into doubt.

No: the more interesting part here is that Molly would use Lestrade's apparent influence in order to maintain the status quo of Sherlock using the lab in his unofficial capacity, and her being, seemingly, deeply irritated by that fact.

Masochistic. Well, he knew that already. Even though he has never – all right, _mostly_ never given her any encouragement, and has frankly rebuffed her on numerous occasions, only some of them because he was not listening - although he has never shown an inclination for Molly, she still appears – appeared - eager for his attentions. He has to admit that it is flattering, that she knows him at least as well as John does, and still likes him.

Of course, it is possible that the attentions she seeks are merely those of a friend. A human being. That would be all right. Preferable, probably. Beneficial?

"Stop staring." She has not even looked up.

He does not stop staring. "You want me to carry on working here," he states.

She does not reply, just makes a shape with her shoulders which could mean anything.

"It bothers you," he adds.

"No, it doesn't."

Lying. He does bother her.

(Part of him thinks that if he doesn't bother her, he must be doing it wrong. He smiles. His manner is contrived to rub people up the wrong way, and usually that is good, is convenient because people are extremely clingy and uninteresting and coldness is a useful way to keep them out of his aura of thought.)

But why is she lying? It would be better (better for her self esteem, for a start) if she said, Yes, you are pissing me right off, please leave because you (insert her reason here) and then the thing would be out in the open, he could prove her wrong, and they could return to the way they were before. Him working, her working, everything tranquil.

He studies her further. He has already concluded his own work anyway and texted Lestrade: _Residue in the drain pipe shows the bodies were stored on the roof not in the basement._ Obvious. Bizarre, he admits, but there it is. People do not look up and the basement would be (was) the first place the police looked for corpses.

Molly is finishing her task too, setting the tray aside and peeling off the mask, the gloves. The blue latex rolls away from each finger, revealing an unusual red nail varnish which has a gold sheen over it, the kind of paint technology sometimes used on cars belonging to people who regard their mode of transport as a fashion statement.

A date? No. She is displaying none of the nervous excitement which precedes one of her dates. Anyway, he always knows when she has met a new boyfriend. First the trembling and stammering and blushing at mere ideas; then a few days of serene bliss, during which time Sherlock usually absents himself; then the smeared eyeliner, broken voice, frequent rushing from the room to sob in the Ladies toilets; finally silence and back to a great deal of looking at Sherlock's eyes, mouth, hands and legs.

And he looks back, and gives nothing away.

All fingers are finally exposed, delicate, small, each ending in a garish red/gold flash. The gloves are discarded.

"I'm going out tonight," Molly says, glancing at him. "The nail varnish."

Oh. She noticed him staring then. "Obviously." He is about to tell her where she is going and why, and realises that he does not know. All clues are suppressed. There is only the weird, not-date nail varnish.

She takes off her lab coat and hangs it up. "See you later," she says in his direction, not even aiming for eye contact, and walks off.

He still has no idea where she is going.

Now that _is_ interesting.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

_Everybody Needs Somebody To Love_– Wilson Pickett


	5. Ancient dust

_But I got an emptiness deep inside_  
_And I've tried_  
_But it won't let me go_  
_And I'm not a man who likes to swear_  
_But I never cared_  
_For the sound of being alone_

* * *

"It's an obsession," says Dee.

"A good one," says Molly. "I don't mind being a bit obsessed with singing. Or old songs."

"Or old dresses," says Dee.

They are sitting at the bar in the Blues Bar, a small room between a Japanese restaurant and the back window of a fashion store. Carnaby Street is just round the corner. The Bar has a rough and ready vibe, with a wooden floor, not too many lights and a tiny stage at the back where presently a three piece band are plucking out some Robert Johnson numbers.

Molly is not in full Billie Rae mode, just the ruby pin in her hair. She and Dee are maintaining anonymity, more for the fantasy of leading exciting double lives than any real concern about exposure. Molly wears a sparkly top, tight jeans, high heels. Dee has similar, her thick brown hair just in Fifties-style bunches today. It should look odd but looks great. Dee exudes period detail in her make-up and the whole look works.

They are drinking beer and somewhat listening to the music but mostly chatting. Dee has a faint accent. "Kiwi," she explains. "Been over here since forever though. Parents came back. Older sister wanted to go to uni here so we all came."

They talk about families and friends and naturally, after a while, about men.

They are both single. Dee is more enthusiastic about this than Molly. She is a little younger, has not yet felt the chill breeze of middle age waft past her neck, signalling the last chances for love, marriage, children. Dee sees opportunities and freedom. Molly sees her flat, and herself, both shabbier, faded, unloved.

"Ah, this is where you get all your soul," says Dee. "You're looking for love. Lost love?"

Molly just smiles.

"There is someone," Dee surmises. "You're carrying a torch for someone... who is he?"

Molly gets out her purse, unfolds it, shows Dee the photo on the other side of her travel pass. It is her and Sherlock, taken one Christmas. John is just visible the other side of Sherlock. Sherlock has a slight frown of disapproval and his hair is falling over one eye. He is wearing what he always wears: black suit, dark shirt, no tie, the collar open to white throat. This shirt is magenta. Mrs Hudson took the picture.

"Very nice," approves Dee. "Hang on. I know him. He's that bloke. That detective."

Molly grimaces. It is hard, that he is famous. Worse, when he is in the papers or on the telly. "Yes."

"You've got a celebrity crush!" accuses Dee.

"No," says Molly. "I know him."

"You know him. How? Don't tell me, you work for the police."

"No," says Molly, "I work in the morgue at St Barts. Don't say anything, it's kind of a secret."

"Ok. And wow. You know him. He's hot too."

Hot. Molly has tried not to think of him in those terms, for a long time. How does she think of him now? Painful. Magnetic. Still irresistible but not in the way Dee imagines. "Mmn."

"So, what, you met at work?"

"No, we met at uni."

"Tell me all," Dee instructs, placing a fresh bottle of beer in front of Molly. "Come on, give me the dirt."

So she does.

* * *

They are nineteen years old, at Southampton University. He already has his Cambridge degree. She is starting medical school.

She likes him at once, seeing him around campus. He wears black, black jeans, black roll neck sweaters, black blazer, like someone in a 1960s French film. Or a poet, the kind of poet who leans on a walk smoking and looking mean. Like Johnny Cash on Molly's dad's old albums. Sherlock doesn't say much. He appears in one of her lectures and sits beside her and she smiles at him thinking, _You're gorgeous_, and he gives her a startled smile back and she is smitten before the first slide appears on the screen.

She doesn't do anything about it, imagining that it will progress, and that he might make a move because he seems so confident. It is in his walk, his answers in lectures. He belongs to the judo club and she sees him one day sparring on the practice mats in the sports centre. He is tall but so slight that the other bloke should just crush him, but Sherlock is quick, light on his feet, skilled, and has a deadly sense of opportunity. He has none of the hesitation she would, about hurting the other person.

She read once that half the battle in boxing is expecting to get hit. She supposes this is the other side of the coin: being prepared to strike.

But after a year of occasional sitting together, nothing has happened.

He doesn't have any other girlfriends. Tends to sit alone at mealtimes, if he turns up at all. There is not a lot of room sharing here – plenty of space for single rooms, away from the capital - and he lives alone. He sometimes sits with the engineering geeks. Sometimes the medical ones. Sometimes the computer ones. He doesn't have any close friends, just people whose groups he turns up on the fringes of. And her.

He is brilliant. Clever and impatient - unafraid to challenge anyone he thinks is wrong. He makes a few enemies among the staff. A few admirers too, in the academic sense.

She decides to ask him out, to the end of year ball. The medical ball is legendary. She finds him one evening, after dinner, which he did not attend, in his room. "Are you going to the ball," she asks.

"No," he says. "Dull socialising for the purpose of consuming alcohol and attempting to fulfil fantasies of sexual conquest."

"Oh." She asks anyway. "I wondered if you wanted to go with me."

He stares at her.

"It's ok," she says, mortified. "Just wondering, it doesn't matter."

She really thought he would be pleased, would smile, would soften and say he had hoped all year that she liked him... would be someone basically, which he obviously is not.

She stumbles away red faced and close to tears because he did not even try to let her down gently, and walks across the medical campus towards her hall of residence.

It is evening, summer, not that dark. The footpath lights are not switched on. She is not paying attention and does not notice she is being followed until she is grabbed from behind and dragged off the path into the rhododendrons.

The man grips her and starts trying to tear at her skirt, pushing her towards the ground. She screams but he gets his foul smelling hand over her mouth and shuts her up with that and horrible threats and she realises that she is going to be raped, and perhaps she will die afterwards.

Then Sherlock appears and ruthlessly floors the man, standing over him - on him - until he screams in his turn. Sherlock says, "Are you all right," to Molly and she squeaks "Yes," although her arm is limp and she cannot feel her hand.

Sherlock gives her his phone - almost no one had a phone in those days, but he does, a chunky Ericsson thing with a nobbly aerial. She calls the police and they take too long to arrive so Sherlock releases the would-be rapist and he runs off.

"Don't worry," Sherlock says in his cold way, "I know how to find him."

He goes to Molly, and without asking simply picks her up and carries her to the all night clinic and they talk to her and check her injuries - fractured wrist, identified by Sherlock - and he rings the police back and tears strips off them for incompetence and tells them who they are looking for based on the man's strange and unpleasant smell, and when he is satisfied that they will actually go to the print works and arrest the man, he turns back to Molly, asks again if she is all right, and then leaves.

After that he disappears somewhere for the summer. When she sees him again in the autumn term he sits beside her in her first lecture, looks hard at her in the way she will come to know as his scanning look, total information absorption, and says nothing.

Then he ignores her.

She sees him around sometimes. He gives her the appraising look. It seems to mean something. She cannot rid herself of the idea that he cares for her. There is nothing to suggest that he does. Just that dark look.

Then one day she sees him walking through town with a woman, a much older woman, and as she wonders if it is an aunt, perhaps even his mother, although the body language between them is wrong for either option, the woman stops, says something to him and laughs arrogantly and reaches up to Sherlock and kisses him hard, not a loving kiss, an angry one.

Then this woman and Sherlock walk on, his hand in hers.

It turns out she is his tutor, a biochemist of international renown.

Molly sheds some tears then.

Sherlock disappears after that. His Masters is finished. She has no idea if he has a job, has gone to do a doctorate, or what. The tutor vanishes too.

Much later it turns out that the tutor left under a cloud, and that the cloud appears to have been Sherlock, intimate relations with, breach of professional conduct involving.

Molly goes out with a boy from her course, loses her virginity to him, spends the rest of her time at uni with him and then in a flash one night she imagines their entire life: first jobs, better jobs, engagement, wedding, children, holidays, better jobs again, retirement, more holidays. It is too horribly predictable. She breaks it off before they graduate.

She goes to the graduation ball with a group of girlfriends, and they get drunk and compare the hospitals where they will be doing their first proper doctor jobs. Molly's is the most prestigious and she is teased about it constantly.

Molly is waiting at the packed bar to get another round in when a deep dark voice says beside her "Congratulations," and there is Sherlock standing in a black velvet DJ, no tie, with a cigarette in his hand.

They stare at each other. He is smiling because he has shocked her by materialising. She is smiling because it is him.

"You got a First," he says.

She shrugs. Having a First is rather strange because everyone else, rightfully pleased with their 2:2s and 2:1s, cannot work out what to say to you. It has opened a lot of doors though.

"It's awkward being better, isn't it?" he says then.

"You're the expert," she says, and gives him a little grin. Of course he would know all about that.

"Histopathology," he says. It will be her specialism. He sounds impressed.

"Yes. It's nice and...difficult." A puzzle. She enjoys analytical work, and it is a lot easier when the subject won't interrupt with questions.

"Difficult is good," he agrees. He is smiling again and for once he seems slightly relaxed.

"Come and dance," she says. "Let's catch up."

He shakes his head. "Just passing," he says.

"Oh, are you with someone?" The question does not exactly follow on but it does in her head.

"No," he says.

"Neither am I," she says.

Any other man would take the bloody hint but not him.

She misses her turn at the bar, standing looking at him, and they are getting elbowed.

Fine, she thinks. Hints are obviously too subtle. She has had a couple of drinks. She steps to him and wraps her arms round his neck and with no more than that, after four years' gap lifts her head and kisses him on the mouth.

He freezes. She tastes Marlboro Red. His lips are soft and smooth. He smells... of antique clothes, like walking into a little backstreet knick-knack shop because you saw something fascinating in the window. A scent of ancient dust, like a book which has not been opened in a hundred years.

He hesitates. His left arm goes around her, then his right, holding the cigarette away from her. He is thin, his body bony and hard inside the velvet. He kisses her in return, just lips, but his eyes are open and vulnerable and the kiss is full of yearning. She gasps and clutches at him, and then his eyes widen and he breaks the kiss, the old, guarded look back in his eyes.

He puts his hands on her shoulders and carefully removes her. "I am not," he says. The end of the sentence is still in his head somewhere.

Her lip twitches. More humiliation and tears. She does this to herself, of course.

"Available," he says finally.

"When," she asks. "When will you be?"

"I can't," he says. "That's all."

He does not apologise. He turns and strides away, flinging his cigarette onto the floor.

* * *

"Nine years later he walked into the morgue at St Barts and saw me. For once he was surprised. We said hello and ever since it's been, well, just like it is now." Molly can hardly begin to describe what that is.

"You asked him out. He said no. He's basically been an arse ever since." Dee's mouth is hard.

"Hmmm." There is a bit more to it than that but this is not the moment to go into how he needed her, or to mention falsifying death certificates and a year of lying to everyone to protect him.

"You need to move on," says Dee. Her final pronouncement.

"That's why I have Billie Rae."

"True. Here's to vintage!" Dee clinks beer bottle with Molly.

"Vintage!"

And they drink. The subject of men past transforms into the simpler subject of men present, for example, men present in the bar this evening. There is a bloke at the bar, around their own age, who seems to know the words to every song being played on stage.

"I dare you," says Dee, and Molly is obliged to shimmy over to the guy and smile and touch his arm for no reason and then walk away and she comes back to Dee, slowly for maximum rear exposure, and when she glances back the guy is gaping at her.

Three seconds later he is beside them buying them both a drink.

Molly spoils it somewhat by explaining that it was a dare but the guy doesn't care, still seems flattered, and is cute, quite funny and extremely fit. Dee has her eye on him and Molly shrugs and listens to the music as Dee chats him up.

Molly thinks she likes the look of the bass player and Dee whispers, "I dare you," again, and Molly just laughs and shakes her head.

"Why not," says Dee. "You totally could."

Molly shrugs. "Just fine with being single."

"Bollocks. You want celebrity crush bloke to walk in and sweep you off your feet."

"Not going to happen," says Molly. "He's so used to me now he doesn't even see me. I could throw myself right at him and he wouldn't notice."

"Want me to text him for you?" Dee makes a play of going to Molly's phone.

"No!"

"Next time," says Dee and they giggle and buy more drinks and Molly touches the ruby pin in her hair and thinks that Billie Rae has done this for her, found her a friend, given her this evening. Billie Rae is a Sherlock-free second life, and that, and Dee, are treasures worth having, even if Molly is still single and her heart still beats for Sherlock.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

_I am ... I said _- Neil Diamond


	6. Sequin

_Cause you've started something_  
_Oh, can't you see?_  
_That ever since we met_  
_You've had a hold on me_

* * *

The body is female, youngish, and has been in the water for several days. Sergeant Donovan is wearing gloves and a face mask. The corpse smells and so does the lake it was pulled from. Donovan wordlessly hands a pair of latex gloves to Sherlock as he approaches the water's edge. He scowls as he sees her. "Where's Lestrade? It's always Lestrade."

"He's here. Gone for a slash. As soon as he's back he's welcome to you." Her sour expression is magnified by the harsh floodlights set up by the incident team. The so-called ornamental lake between grimy social housing blocks has never been so grimly visible. "This place gives me the creeps in the day, never mind half past bloody midnight."

Sherlock ignores her bleating and and crouches beside the body. Lestrade called him because there is no purse, driving licence, phone or any other item which might identify her.

She was dead when she entered the water. A stab wound to the neck. A shallow blade, not a kitchen knife or some implement which might suggest premeditation. If you had to stab someone you wouldn't choose a knife with a two inch blade. Or even smaller. One inch? Useful limitation of weapon. Next.

There is no blood staining on her clothes. The killer has undressed and then re-dressed her in these clothes: grey sweatshirt, pink jogging pants, trainers, no socks. The clothes fit: they are the victim's own, just not what she was wearing at the time of death.

No underwear. Sherlock can see, in his peripheral vision, Donovan's sneer as he ascertains that the dead woman has neither bra nor knickers under the sodden sweats. The killer needed to remove them, but could not be bothered to replace them.

"Perv," mutters Donovan, and John is not here to shut her up.

So, bloodstained clothes replaced, and a wound inflicted with whatever was to hand. A crime of passion, but one which rapidly evolved into an elaborate cover-up. The killer believes he or she is better than the victim, deserving to live without punishment for taking a life. Arrogance is a weakness and one Sherlock plans to exploit.

The dead girl's face is puffed and distorted from her time in the water. She was thirty, thirty one. Worked indoors, not narrowing it down much in London, a city of office workers. Her fingernails are very short and neat, not painted, but there are traces of adhesive on her cuticles: she wore false nails. Her eyebrows are heavily plucked. She has half a set of false eyelashes drooping from her left eye. Her original bloodstained outfit must have warranted a bit of effort. A date. Most likely the killer is a boyfriend or would-be boyfriend.

The removal of the clothes is odd, though. If he was going to dump her anyway, why bother taking off the clothes? The clothes are a clue to her identity.

Possible sexual motivation with the missing underwear, and no way to confirm it yet. Sherlock can see no trace of struggle on the body, and the water will have damaged most evidence. It remains a possibility only.

"Sherlock! What have got for us?" DI Lestrade strides to the taped-off scene, grey-haired, jovial, his beige raincoat flapping cheerily around his knees.

Sherlock reels off what little he has learned so far, and Donovan rolls her eyes.

"I need to examine the body more closely to get a better chance of identifying her," Sherlock says with dignity.

"Freak," says Donovan. "There's other ways to meet girls you know." She laughs at her own joke and Lestrade frowns at her.

Sherlock tamps down anger and moves around the body once more."The murder took place in the victim's home or office, possibly gym. Somewhere she had a spare set of clothes to hand," he says. "The original clothes were probably more formal, and definitely covered in blood. The knife hit an artery - more by luck than judgement, looking at the multiple jabs around the main wound - so we are looking for a first-time killer who is not squeamish and a set of clothes which are absolutely blood-soaked. Wait ."

He has spotted something.

"Can I move the body now please?" Donovan asks sarcastically.

Sherlock glowers. But there is no point trying to work with this resentful woman clogging up his thought processes. He contents himself with saying, "You might want to bag this before you do. Another clue you have missed whilst expending energy on misplaced insults."

"What."

He leans in to the body, noting Donovan's protective flinch, and points without touching anything. "This."

Donovan blinks. She grabs tweezers  
from her pocket and extracts the tiny item from the curl of the dead woman's ear. She holds it up and it gleams pink in the light. A sequin.

* * *

It is not that interesting a case, yet Sherlock is at the morgue relatively early next day- half eleven, which for him represents some significant effort after a late night at the crime scene. He wants another look at the body. He still has too little to identify the victim.

He sweeps in and goes directly to Molly. "Molly, can you wheel out last night's body for me?"

She is tying her hair up. "I'm just going to start on it actually. You can watch."

She speaks casually, granting him permission as if there could be any other outcome.

He nods anyway as if this was the answer he expected.

She gives him a vague smile."Is this going to be one of yours then?"

He frowns at her. She is odd again. What is it? Slight hangover, no more than four beers though - he detects American bottled import beer on her skin beneath the current shower gel (peaches and cream, a sickly combination) - and she has deeper shadows under her eyes than usual. So: a late night out drinking with her non date. Sex? No. He glances at her neck and throat again, the places where he would leave marks of possession and pleasure, and the skin is clear. And the shower gel, which cannot hide the residue of alcohol excreted through skin, could never mask the reek of a night of sexual abandon.

Just drinks with a friend, then. A new friend. A friend who causes Molly to be _absent_ just as Sherlock can take himself away, leaving his physical body behind and entering the universe of his mind.

He has forgotten to answer her question but she has turned away, checking her emails, rolling her eyes at some request, typing a rapid reply. One of the other doctors. Not the new friend. Molly displays no signs of her new, mystifying condition.

The body is brought in and Molly picks up her clipboard for the initial exam. Sherlock finds the bag of possessions, and seeks out the sequin.

It is odd. For a start, it has tiny holes through it like a button. But sequins are glued. Have they always been? Are high class sequins sewn on?

The sequin is old, although the body is not. There is wear on the edges and the shine has faded. The victim or killer was wearing something old, then. Fancy dress? Re-enactment society? He will look into both. Or it could be some personal connection, her mother's wedding dress or similar. People do cling onto the remnants of old associations. How many times has he encountered a widow who still has cupboards full of the belongings of the deceased?

"We need the original clothes and shoes," Sherlock complains as Molly turns the body with the ease of long practice.

The sweatshirt and jogging bottoms are generic, supermarket purchases. The garment from which the sequin came would have been special. Although of course it is possible that the sequin is a chance addition during the body's time in the lake...

"Boots," says Molly.

"What?"

She points. Two matching marks on each plump upper calf. A patch of rough skin, and reddish abrasions. "She was wearing knee high boots. Probably new as they were rubbing her."

Sherlock grabs the magnifier. "You're right." How did he miss that?

"This _is_ my job," she says, touching her hair. "You know, those ten years I've spent examining dead bodies." She gives a short laugh.

He looks up at her sharply. "Sarcasm, Molly?"

"Just a little something to brighten my day," she says, adjusting her hair again and Sherlock's eyes focus on the hairpin, a gold pin with a red glass bead on the end. Also new, like the friend. A gift? "We all need something," she adds, and writes on her clipboard.

Sherlock puts the evidence bags away. "Lunch?" he suggests.

"Oh, that'd be great." She scrabbles in her lab coat pocket and produces a fiver. "Anything except tuna, and a can of Coke. Thanks."

He takes the note, bemused, seeing her attention already back on the deceased, and goes off towards the cafeteria, feeling that something, somewhere, is terribly wrong. And not just because an unknown woman is dead on a slab.

It does not help that when he glances back he just catches Molly with her head bent to the clipboard, a strand of hair loose against her cheek, a wicked smile on her red-painted lips.

* * *

The flat at Baker Street is dimly lit and heaving with bodies. Sadly these bodies are mostly upright, all are breathing and everyone except him is talking loudly over the awful music. Sherlock contemplates leaving. It is not as if any of these people are here for him anyway. They are here for John.

John finds him at the far end of the kitchen, ready to sneak into his room. "Sherlock, where's Molly?"

Sherlock assumes a vague expression.

John is not fooled for a second. "Sherlock! You know I asked you to invite her, why didn't you?"

"She left before I had a chance," Sherlock says.

"What, every day for a week? Come on Sherlock, you know I wanted to introduce her to Steve."

Steve is tall, dark haired, blue eyed, with a Belfast accent and a degree in forensic pathology.

"You still can," says Sherlock."Next time you see him. And her."

"I will be in Manchester," says John. "Remember?"

Mary's job is in Manchester and after months of long distance love, John is moving up there too.

Sherlock shrugs.

John rolls his eyes. "Oh god don't sulk. I'll text her now, see if she's free. Steve likes the sound of a gorgeous redhead who enjoys dead bodies."

"She isn't free. She's out. On a not-date." Another one. He'd have been tempted to follow her if he hadn't promised John he would be here.

"Right." John peers at Sherlock. "You're being weird," he pronounces.

"And you're being a doctor who unfortunately has drunk too much to be convincing."

They scowl at each other, then grin.

"So where is she?" John asks.

"I have no idea." Deeply embarrassing. But nobody is perfect and he will find out, soon enough.

"Really? Oh." John pauses. "You - I hate to be blunt, Sherlock, but while I can still ask face to face - you have thanked her. Or apologised to her. Or something. For what she did. Haven't you?"

Big pause. Sherlock opens the fridge as if looking for something. He takes put a bottle of rose wine.

John takes it from him and puts it back. "Sherlock," he says, "please do it. For me. Let her know you're grateful, or sorry, or something. Stop pretending it was nothing just because it all worked out in the end. She risked everything for you, her job -"

"All right, all right, I know. I will." It has gone on a long time now, though, and will be difficult.

He finds it hard, displaying gratitude, at the best of times and with Molly, gratitude will be abysmal, beyond awkward and into mortification.

"Really?" John gives him the doctor look, the gimlet look.

"Yes." He will. There are ways.

"Not with a text, Sherlock."

"Oh god. All _right_." Damn.

John sighs. "Thank you." He glances round in satisfaction at the welter of people who have come to see him off. Sherlock cannot imagine filling a cupboard, much less a whole flat, with his own well-wishers. That is John's talent, to make friends. He even made friends with Sherlock, an almost unprecedented occurrence. He can do that. Sherlock excels in other spheres.

John hesitates. "She loves you, Sherlock. I mean, we all do." John gives him a suitably manly punch on the arm. "But she loves you, not as a friend, and you have to treat her gently. Geddit?"

"No," says Sherlock. "She doesn't." He opens two beers with vicious cracks of the bottle opener.

"What?" John is peering at him. "What have you done now?"

A fair assumption, if incorrect in this case. "Nothing! She's just... changed. Ignores me. When I am sitting two feet away, she ignores me." He cannot keep the outrage from his voice.

John snorts.

"It isn't funny!"

"Oh but it is. Good for her. She's moved on. Finally." John sups some beer and nods.

Sherlock frowns and thinks it is not as brilliant as all that, but says nothing.

"Sadly though," says John, "it sounds like on the apology front you may have left it too late."

"Ok then." One less thing to worry about. He never needs any more.

"No, not ok. Please try to remember this stuff, Sherlock. When I'm not here. Please. I hate it when other people think you're a dick." John has gone all serious and sincere. Sherlock is embarrassed.

He shrugs, waves a hand dismissively. "You think I am."

"That's my privilege for living with you. Please try not to actually be one."

John is gazing at him. He expects an answer, a promise Sherlock cannot give, has never been able to give. "I'll try," Sherlock says at last. A huge concession. John has no idea how hard it is to recall other people when _working_.

"Thanks."

Sherlock slides away before John can give him a drunken hug.

"Come and talk to Steve," says John then. "He's interesting. He knows a lot about murder."

"Actually," Sherlock says, "I might go for a walk. It's noisy in here." He does not want to stand and talk to the supposedly eligible Steve about things he supposedly has in common with the actually attractive and supposedly redheaded Molly.

"All right," says John. "I'll see you later."

"Mmn," Sherlock says vaguely, and picks up his coat, and escapes.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Hmmn, my first dead-body scene. Please let me know if you think I pulled it off. All details are completely made up. Predictably my degree was in English and not medicine so extreme suspension of disbelief is probably required. Thank you. And there will be another update very soon. -Sef

_I only want to be with you_ - Dusty Springfield


	7. Robust silhouette

_For five long years_

_I thought you were my man_

_But I found out_

_I'm just a link in your chain_

The doorbell buzzes, a tired electronic version of a real bell.

Molly is in bed, watching television. You watch a lot of television when you are single and work shifts. Television stands in for the friends whose free time does not coincide with your own. Although tonight it is merely helping her relax after a night at a pub in Camden with Dee, watching 'Gin and Tonic' and their small band. They gave a competent rendition of some more Cliff and a bit of Cilla, among others. Phil texted her from the Beehive begging her and Dee to go down there after, but Molly was too tired. It is cold outside despite being April and the rhinestones on tonight's dress do not provide insulation.

The doorbell again. Whoever it is, they are determined.

She climbs out of bed, her foundation garments forming a robust silhouette under her fluffy blue dressing gown, and feels for the slippers. Flap, flaps to the hall. Looks through the spyhole.

Sherlock is outside in the grimy corridor, wrapped in his big black coat, looking impatient.

Molly takes a breath and touches the ruby pin, the Billie Rae pin. She thinks of how she can silence a roomful of people simply by walking onto the stage, before she has sung a single note. She can handle Sherlock at midnight.

She unlocks the door, takes off the chain, and lets him in. "Sherlock, it's half eleven at night."

"Is it?"

What utter bollocks. He knows the time of day in a dozen countries without thinking about it. She has tired of his adorable genius act. It is not cute that he apparently forgets common knowledge in order to manipulate others into doing things for him. He can name every bone in the human body, he can certainly look at his watch.

She takes a breath, pulling the dressing gown round her and tying it tightly. "Yes. What's the matter? Why are you here?"

He is looking all round. "John's in Baker Street. Throwing a work party. People. I couldn't stand it."

She stares at him, trying to look disapproving. She knows it does not work, and wouldn't work on him anyway: he is immune to other people's opinions. "So naturally you came here."

Is it meant to be a kind of compliment, being dragged to the door in the middle of the night?

"I don't have a wide range of people who might answer the door to me at this hour," he says.

So he did know. Of course he did. And now he's trying for pathetic . It's working, but probably not in the way he hopes.

"Right," she says with a heavy sigh. "D'you want a coffee? You can crash here tonight. I suppose."

A year ago she would have been hurrying to dress, to stay up late, to entertain him. Now she trudges into the miniature kitchen and fills the kettle, switches it on and stands blankly waiting for it to boil. After a bit she opens the nearest cupboard and pulls out two mugs. Decaff for her. He gets the normal stuff. "It's not real coffee," she says over her shoulder, and realises he has gone.

She rolls her eyes and emerges from the kitchen. The flat is tiny – it was tiny or flatshare and she was not going through that hell again, John Watson has nothing on her stories – and checks the living room, the hall. He must be in the bathroom. She rattles the door. "Sherlock?"

It might be considered a bit rude to hassle someone in the bathroom, but he has this habit of vanishing and she does not want to be the chump making coffee for someone who has remembered a more exciting engagement elsewhere and simply walked off. Not again.

He is not in the bathroom.

"Molly."

She swings round and he is standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Her bedroom!

"What are you – Come out of my room, please." Thank god the wardrobe doors are shut. And there is no extravagant underwear on the floor because she is still wearing it all.

She steps aside in the narrow passage to encourage him to pass.

He doesn't move.

"Why are you watching this?" he asks.

"What?" A biopic of Erma Franklin on DVD. The screen is frozen on a shot of her performing in a glittering dress. "Just interested."

He frowns. He is giving her the look, the _working you out completely, sucking you in and spitting you out as a series of dry facts_, look. She used to like that look. It used to be sexy, watching him do his thing. But she would rather he saw her as a person, as she sees him.

"Coincidence," he says at last. "It does exist."

Her turn to frown. "What coincidence? Erma Franklin... you know, the singer." She manages to sound vague, as if she has not spent an hour memorising Erma's stance, delivery, the way she draws those big notes up to belt them out into the audience.

His eyelashes flicker as he gazes at her. "Erma Franklin. She did a song called _Piece of my heart_."

Those words, in his voice, give her an old fashioned thrill. Her abandoned fantasies rear up for a moment. "Yes," she says. "What about it?"

Sherlock bites his upper lip. "Not deleted," he says obscurely.

Molly goes back into the kitchen and makes the coffees. On impulse she makes him decaff as well. If he is going to crash here she doesn't want him roaming the place all night, she wants him flat out on the sofa immobile until a convenient hour tomorrow morning.

They sit in the lounge, she in her armchair with a seventies bedspread as a throw, he on her small sofa, shoes kicked off and his knees drawn up under his chin.

He sips coffee, wrinkles his nose, sips some more, watching her over the rim of the mug, and then puts the mug on the coffee table, still mostly full.

"So how was the party?" she asks, feeling strange. It has been a long time since she and Sherlock have done small talk. If they ever have.

"You've changed things," he says, looking around the room.

She follows his gaze. "Yes. A bit."

He has been here once before, after his fall, and for about ten minutes. Of course that would have been sufficient for him to take a complete mental snapshot of her home.

"The curtains are new. Except that they are old." He is frowning. "Why did you deliberately buy something old to replace something old?"

The curtains are a brilliant retro find from Brick Lane. Giant stylised flowers in orange and brown on a white background. They are funky and also they match the brown carpet, which she cannot change. "You can't get that style any more," she says. "And that's the style I wanted."

Is she really justifying her home decor choices to Sherlock?

"But why not have something new?" he asks.

She stiffens. Billie Rae does what she pleases and does not need to explain herself. "You have the world's oldest wallpaper in your flat," she says. "Why don't _you_ have something new?"

He blinks.

_That's right Sherlock, I do bite back; you've just never been on the receiving end before. You should see the journalists run._

"The wallpaper belongs to Mrs Hudson," he says. "I didn't choose it."

"Ok, your suits. You wear a suit every day. It's your style. Well, this is my style." _Like it or lump it,_ thinks Billie Rae. _I am who I am. I always have been, but you never saw it._

"My suits are _new_," he says, sounding a little aggrieved.

"But if you couldn't get them the shape you wanted -" Involuntarily her eye traces that shape, close fitting jacket down through the chest, trousers snug over the narrow hips, following the outline of his slender legs, narrow at the ankle. "Then what would you do?"

"Have them made." He seems genuinely puzzled.

She relents a little. He doesn't get it. "I like old things," she says. "Those curtains. They remind me of my childhood. My great-grandma. She was so old, frail, but she was always so pleased to see me, made a real fuss of me, she was lovely."

Sherlock is calm again, watching her face. "The memory makes you sad," he pronounces. "But happy. Nostalgia."

"Yes. The curtains remind me of the good times, even if they're gone. When I look at them I can picture Grandma's house, all her funny ornaments, her doilies, the bottle of Ribena she kept on the counter just for when I came round. It's like I'm back there again."

"A kind of time travel," Sherlock exclaims, and his expression is wondering.

"I suppose it is," she says.

"It would be invaluable in my work," he says then, unfolding and laying his legs across her coffee table.

"If you could go back and witness crimes and find out who the killer was, would people still kill?"

"People will always kill." His voice is flat: the inevitable evil of humanity.

"Even if they knew it was _you_ hunting them down?" It is a fact that he excels at his adopted job.

"It doesn't stop them at the moment," he says. But he seems pleased by her compliment.

"With time travel, you'd be invincible," she says with a horrified smile.

"No," he says, turning his head to gaze full at her, "I'd be bored."

She laughs. He smiles. "Drink your coffee," she tells him. "I'll find the spare duvet."

* * *

She is, luckily, mostly dressed when Sherlock opens the door to her bedroom next morning. "Hey!"

He waves a hand, his eyes nowhere near her. Asks about coffee, which cupboard. She tells him and he vanishes again.

Hmmn.

When she is ready she comes through into the lounge, work clothes on, make up in place, feet in comfortable shoes, overall depressing sense of anti-glamour pervading.

He is picking some tiny object off the sofa - duvet already rolled up and stowed under the coffee table - and his brow is creased in a dark frown.

There are two cups of coffee on the low table. "Oh. Thank you." She takes the one which is not black. Sips it. "What coffee is this?" Nothing she recognises.

"Your own. Three teaspoons."

It works. She thinks she is about to treble her instant coffee bill. "Thank you," she says again, mainly out of surprise that he has done something considerate.

"What are the dresses in your wardrobe?" he asks. He has pocketed whatever he found.

She freezes. When did he see them? Last night when he wandered in there? Or in the split second in her room, just now? He is a liability and this is precisely why she has kept this stuff a secret from him. "Dresses," she says, trying to make it as dull, feminine and ordinary as possible.

"Ballroom dancing dresses?"

Oh. Is that his best guess? "Kind of. Yes." Well, you could dance in them. For _Strictly_, you'd need to chop about three foot off the hem, add some tassels, hope your knickers didn't show. She has never understood what kind of ballroom those _Strictly_ dresses would be appropriate for.

Sherlock frowns.

She pats her hair, feels the ruby pin. Billie Rae is safe. And Billie Rae is mischievous. "There are two thousand five hundred sequins on the Happy Birthday dress worn by Marilyn Monroe," she says. "And every one was hand stitched."

There. Take that and stick it in your mind palace. Will it live between _Football (Pointless)_ and _Soap Operas (Insultingly Pointless)_? Or does it get its own room, _Sequins, Thousands Of?_

She smiles, picturing him filing away sequin data.

He stares at her.

She picks up her handbag. "Let's go."

He lifts his coat and throws it around his shoulders, thrusts his arms into the sleeves. He is still looking at her curiously, his eyes shimmering. Good.

In the narrow hallway Sherlock stops before he unchains the door. They are standing close together and he is looming in his long black coat. "Molly. Thank you. For this. For - everything."

She was fumbling in her bag for the deadlock key. At his words, she stops dead. Sherlock is eighteen inches away, projecting sincerity. She does not trust it. "No problem," she says. "Any time," she adds, because he is still staring at her with his intense blue gaze and the space between them is becoming uncomfortable.

He moves his right hand slightly then adjusts his coat collar with it. The hand returns slowly to his side.

Is he going to ... hug her?

She can hardly imagine a less Sherlock action. Billie Rae is ready with a derogatory comment if he tries to increase plausibility through a display of affection.

He yanks the chain off the hook and pulls open the front door. "I'll hail us a cab," he says, and strides out. A second later she hears him, sprinting down the stairs, two at a time.

* * *

**Author's note: **

It's actually hand-stitched rhinestones on the Monroe dress, which sold some years back for one and a half million dollars. Marilyn had to be sewn into it for her performance, it was so tight-fitting. Now that's commitment.

_Chain of fools _- Aretha Franklin


	8. Extra sugar

_Take me for granted, leaving love unsure_

_Makes willpower weak_

_And temptation strong_

* * *

Sherlock goes to Baker Street, showers, dresses and as a concession to having no proper case (and to John), eats some cereal. That uses the last of the milk. He will have to buy some. So tedious. Maybe Mrs Hudson can be charmed into a weekly shop. Or maybe she can just be paid: she tends to see right through him most of the time. He supposes family, even adopted family, can do that.

There is a text from John. _Going for a drink after work, want to come? J_

Celebrations in this country revolve around the consumption of alcohol. _Case allowing. SH_

A reply from John. _Work people won't stay long then we can chat. J_

More seeing through Sherlock's code. He smiles. Will have to see_. SH_

_Where did you end up last night? J_

Ah, here it is: concern. John remains convinced that Sherlock could go off the rails at any moment. It is not unreasonable after all that has happened, plus his history of drug experimentation, but it is quite unfounded.

The question proves a little difficult to answer, however. _I was at Molly's_ . He is not sure he can bear the innuendo which will inevitably follow. _At a friend's house_ – John would instantly deduce the same answer and anyway Sherlock despises vagueness. He finally decides on the suitably formal yet accurate, _I went to see Molly Hooper. SH_

He waits for John to tease him about it but John just replies, _Good, give her my love when you next see her. See you later. J_

John's world is so straightforward.

* * *

The lab at St Bart's is quiet and slightly shaken up by the excessively busy day yesterday. There is a sense of hard impact just fading, like a ringing in the ears after a bang.

Molly is absent for much of the day. He glimpses her having an impromptu meeting in the canteen: she is tapping her clipboard and speaking in a steady tone, her jaw set. The two colleagues duck their heads and shuffle their feet and generally take a verbal bashing from Molly Hooper. Sherlock smirks and adds an extra sugar to his coffee and slinks away to wait until she is free.

When she appears he places the evidence bag on her desk. She has not even sat down. She frowns and looks at him. "It's from the unidentified girl found in the lake," he says. "A sequin."

Molly opens the bag and takes the sequin out, with tweezers.

"It's the only odd thing found on the body," says Sherlock. "What do you make of it?"

Molly glances at him suspiciously. "This is not really my area..."

"Please."

Even more suspicion. He is not surprised. Since when has he ever asked nicely for anything? (Since it became obvious that she was no longer a constant in his life.)

She moves the magnifier over her workstation, holds the sequin under its illuminated lens.

"OK, let me see. This is old. Hand stitched, which puts it before the eighties. It's not gelatin, which places it after the forties. Sequins used to melt if they got too hot. If your dance partner put his hand on the back of your dress it could melt them. Anyway. This looks like the acetate type of sequin developed by Lieberman with Kodachrome some time in, I think, the fifties. The acetate sequins were very brittle so this would have been a very expensive dress, or very well looked after, to have survived this long." She lifts her head.

Sherlock is astonished. Molly Hooper, Sequin Expert. He snorts.

"It's an unusual colour," she says. "I know it's rusted a little but that raspberry pink is pretty distinctive.

"A dress or a blouse?" Sherlock asks.

"I don't know, Sherlock, it could be anything." He is disappointed. "It could just be the edging from something. Or it could be one of thousands on a full length gown." He flashes back to her fact about Marilyn Monroe. He looked up the dress. It was extremely form fitting and absolutely encrusted with sparkle.

"Fancy dress costume?" suggests Molly.

"OK, how about this one?" He places the green sequin in front of her.

"Also old," she says. "Not rusted or worn though, still a strong jade colour –"

She stops. Squints at him suspiciously. He looks back blandly.

She touches her hair. Takes a breath. "I would say that this came from a full length jade green dress, with sequins stitched to the bodice only, the rest of the dress a sateen viscose. The dress was made around 1977 but has been altered since then to fit a slimmer figure and fuller bust."

She folds her arms before his eyes can confirm the assessment of the bust, and glares at him. "Where did you get this, Sherlock?"

"Your sofa."

"Right. Why?"

She saw him do it. She said nothing at the time. Has it only become a problem now or was it always a problem about which she said nothing?

He thinks of her giving her colleagues a tongue lashing. He answers precisely: "It was an interesting coincidence that I found a sequin on the very day I had already found a sequin."

She rolls her eyes and now her hands are on her waist. (Yes: full bust. He has never considered the specifics in those terms before.) "Oh my god. Detective in Two Sequin Shocker. Can I have it back, please. I need to work out which bit of my dress is falling apart."

"Why have you got a dress made in 1977?" Her flat is full of old things. Newly acquired old things. Once he realised, he saw more and more. A fair amount of new things too, but done in nostalgic styles, like the coasters with 1930s railway posters on.

"I told you. I like old things." Hands on hips, mouth pursed, not giving an inch. The new Molly.

He frowns. She is lying to him about something, not the dress. Something else. He hands back the sequin.

"Thank you," she says coldly.

"The water washed away our chances of finding the killer's DNA," he says. "There is no CCTV of that area. nobody saw anything. And nobody has reported anyone missing who fits the victim's description. Frustrating." He gazes at her. He tries not to do the pitiful look but cannot help it.

She sighs. Her eyes are such a sparkling brown. "If you like I can ask around," Molly says. "I know someone who is a genius with old clothes."

She is smiling fondly. Sherlock instantly dislikes the genius.

"Don't bother," he says shortly. "It's probably not even connected to the victim."

She looks at him. "Yes, it is," she says slowly. "Or you wouldn't be here asking about it "

More code cracking. It was much better when people found him obscure.

* * *

He makes it to about seven p.m. before crushing boredom sends him onto the streets. He walks, watching everything, moving quickly from the busy roads close to Baker Street to the whistling ghettos beyond Euston. Kings Cross used to be an interesting area but now it has been cleaned up, obliterated by the new station building and millions of pounds worth of investment. It is all sharp white concrete and underfoot LEDs these days.

He wanders past pubs, clubs, and that brothel the police do not believe him about. This gives him another thought and he cuts back, striking south, towards Soho. But at this hour there is nothing exciting happening. Bright lights, music, doorways enticing customers in for the dubious pleasures of pole dancing and strippers. Boring.

He has walked for nearly two hours. Chinatown is nearby. And also –

He grimaces to himself. His new weakness. Pathetic. And yet now he is here it would be mere stubborn pride not to.

He glances at his watch, and then turns his feet towards Dean Street.

* * *

**Author's note:** I must apologise because this chapter was meant to go before the last one. I will post it now and swap it round later. Sorry! -Sef

_Do right woman -_ Aretha Franklin


	9. Claim and comfort

_Is this a lasting treasure _  
_Or just a moment's pleasure? _  
_Can I believe the magic of your sighs? _  
_Will you still love me tomorrow? _

* * *

The next time he turns up it is only half nine. He does not give a reason. Just boredom, she supposes.

She does feel a bit sorry for him. Now John has gone off to Manchester, it must be strange in that flat. Before John there was that other flatmate, whatsisface, the silent biologist, but he went off to Africa. Before him there was that woman, the supercilious one who could give Sherlock a run for his money in the treat-you-like-dirt stakes. Molly is not sure what happened there but it appeared to be a massive argument resulting in the woman storming out and Sherlock swearing he would pay the rent on his own forever. Molly wondered at the time if it was a love thing. She doesn't think so. More likely just a giant clash of giant egos.

You need to have less ego, a lot less ego, than Sherlock, in order to live with him. John has none, not in that way. He's no doormat, but he is prepared to accept the big picture, that is, Sherlock's picture, in order to proceed. Even if this slightly tramples on his own, smaller picture.

Molly used to do that. Let Sherlock's vision take precedence. But whereas John got some benefit from this, not least, a cheap flat in the centre of town with the chance to run round shooting the bad guys, very much John's thing, bless – Molly got nothing in return. So that phase of her life is definitely over.

Yet here he is.

She is nowhere near sleep, and was about to crack a bottle and do some practice, not because that is the most sensible idea, but because she needs to calm down after the day's particularly unpleasant deaths, and singing plus wine represents a double dose of calm.

"Wine," she says as Sherlock sheds his coat and wafts it over the back of the sofa like a magician doing the reverse of the tablecloth trick. She fetches two glasses.

"You don't often have anyone over," he tells her. "There are six glasses on the sideboard. Only the one on the far right is free of dust. It gets used and washed regularly. You usually drink alone." His voice strikes a melancholy note.

She crinkles her nose at his overly accurate deductions. "White or red?"

"I don't really drink."

"I guess that's white then."

She pours. He takes the glass as if he does not know what to do with it. _For pity's sake Sherlock. You can fake your way into any level of social occasion with sheer nerve plus natural arrogance, and now you can't remember how to have a glass of wine with someone? Please._

Of course, at those gigs he is acting. He is being Billie Rae.

She relents a little in her mind.  
Perches on the end of the sofa. "Two poisonings today," she says. They might as well talk about work; it is their only shared interest.

"One was accidental." He sips the wine, his lips uncertain on the rim of the glass.

"I know." She established this very quickly. Lestrade was relieved that he did not have to wait.

"How?" asks Sherlock.

Is he checking her work? Or his?

Molly says, "The overdose was so slight. It was pure bad luck that it killed him. The other one was definitely deliberate, but it's not clear if it is suicide or murder." Nasty either way. People think of poisoning as an easier, cleaner option. It is not.

"Suicide," says Sherlock. He grimaces. "Unfortunately."

She does not pick him up on the social gaffe. It is only her, and anyway she knows what he means. "No case?"

"One unidentified victim. That's all. London is well behaved."

"Look further afield? Cardiff? Glasgow?" He gets some of his cases through John's blog. Will John still write that? Or is that something else which has disappeared from Sherlock's life?

He shrugs. "I have resources in London. I can work properly here."

He puts down the wine – he has at least had a sip of it, a surprising bit of Sherlock courtesy – and pokes about in her dvd collection. "We could watch a film," he says.

"OK." If they are going to spend the evening together, as it seems they are, then that will probably be the most painless way.

He finds a film while she removes cushions from the sofa to make room for a second person on it. You cannot see the TV from the armchair. "You must really be bored," she says. "Coming here to watch a film."

"Yes."

Mr Tact strikes again. But then she said it.

He picks, not a film, but the very first episode of _The West Wing._ Frowns at it, then his face clears, and she sees him relax, or at least, settle into his absorption mode, alert, eyes bright, a very slight smile on his lips. He likes all the fast talking. He even finds it funny, glancing at her as if daring her to laugh at him laughing. She doesn't. Aaron Sorkin can take the credit for this one. _West Wing_ is great and Sherlock has found something he does not feel the need to insult every two minutes.

At the end of the episode he presses Select on the next. "Wait," she says. "I have to go to bed."

"It's Saturday tomorrow."

Ah, acknowledgement of days of the week. She must have caught him off guard. "I have things to do." She has to perfect the _Shoop Shoop_ song by lunchtime, because she has been asked to do it as a favour by Gin, and Molly is not convinced that she has mastered the required strident delivery.

Sherlock looks at her. He does not like vagueness. "What?" he asks bluntly.

"Just things. My own things." _Private things, Sherlock. Don't you have private things?_ Maybe he doesn't.

"Ballroom dancing."

She laughs. "Maybe."

"It's childish to have secrets, Molly." He taps his fingers on the remote as if it is the neck of his violin.

"Is it? And so what?" The wine is emboldening her. She takes a glug.

There is still a third of a bottle. Sherlock pours it into their glasses and drinks some of his. She sips too, automatically following his lead.

He presses Play and she sighs.

He is too big for this sofa, or at least, for sharing this sofa. His long legs. He is sitting with his feet on the coffee table at one end, she is curled up at the other, but it is not that comfortable because she is holding her legs tense so that her knees and feet don't touch him.

"I don't bite," he says suddenly.

She has a vision of him as a vampire, chowing down on a corpse. Not a funny vision. "Right."

"I mean, you can unclench." He reaches out and pulls her legs towards him into a more usual position. They now rest against his. "I am not offended."

"Ok."

She thinks she is, or ought to be. She is inside a bit of Sherlock's personal space and it is uncomfortable. Especially after wine. He is warm. It is making her warm too. In fact now she has lost the thread of Sorkin's dazzling dialogue and can only think about how cosy she is with her feet against his thigh and how he is just a man like any other, curled up on the sofa with her, watching the box.

She takes deep breaths and sees Sherlock looking sideways at her out of his left eye. And then she starts blushing.

He does't say anything, but his eyes slide away.

A moment later his left hand is on her feet, easily covering both, holding her lightly across the arches, his thumb resting along the nearest socked sole.

She sits still and thinks many things. Most of them come down to, _Oh god his hand that's nice_, and _What is he playing at now?_

He is looking at the TV, frowning, cheek twitching in reflexive annoyance at some fictional implausibility, but his palm is rubbing possessively along the tops of her feet, small quick movements of claim and comfort. Then it is still again.

_The West Wing_ probably has a plot, but she has no idea what it might be.

After an unknown period of time he slides his hand away and edges further towards his end of the sofa, his feet shifting on her coffee table. Purple socks.

What was _that_ about? Her heart is racing. So much for cultivating indifference to him. He could always melt her with a look, and it turns out, no surprise, that his touch is still more powerful.

And of course he must know it.

She sits awkward and blushing, slurping wine, feeling turned on and annoyed at herself for reacting so predictably to his odd actions which probably mean nothing beyond curiosity or even absent-mindedness. Or habit? She knows nothing of his girlfriends. She has been assuming there are none. If there was anybody, why would he be here?

They finish the wine and the episode and she gets up. "Are you crashing here?" she asks.

"Yes. If that's all right." His usual stiff manner.

She fetches her spare duvet again and drops it on the arm of the sofa. "What else do you need?"

He is sitting, narrow body stretched out, looking up at her. Flicker of eyelashes. "Nothing."

"Ok. Night."

She lies in bed ten feet away through a thin wall, and replays his hand pulling her legs towards him.

She thinks of the _Shoop_ _Shoop_ song. It's in his kiss. But there was no kissing. Just as well. That would be a very slippery slope.

* * *

**Author's note:**

_Will you still love me tomorrow_ - The Shirelles


	10. Large and efficient bird

_Me and you and you and me_  
_No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be_  
_The only one for me is you, and you for me_  
_So happy together_

* * *

"Where is it tonight?" Molly asks Gin. It is a Wednesday night and Molly is on backing vocals duty again for Gin and Tonic. Sherlock has been absent for a few days: busy with what he described in a text as _a slight case_. Molly has not had any interesting bodies through the door this week, so she assumes it is one of his mysteries, a private client with a puzzle which Sherlock will be paid to solve.

She is standing on the kerb outside her flat, in costume, and she and Gin are watching Tony hail a cab. Gin is in a frothy pink prom dress with a giant bow on the back. Tony has slim trousers and a jacket with a velvet collar. Big hair.

Gin smiles wickedly. "You'll like it. The One Hundred Club."

Wow. Half a mile away, they barely need a cab. But Gin has decided that they are taxi-ing over and to be truthful, Molly's dress and shoes - wickedly tight bronze sateen boat neck shift, kitten heel mules - insist upon wheeled transport. "Oh that's great! I love it there. I didn't know they did karaoke."

There is a silence then, and Tony is staring at Gin accusingly, and Gin looks a little guilty.

"What," Molly asks. "What have you not told me?"

"They don't do karaoke," Tony says.

"It's live music," Gin says. "And you'll be singing for a real crowd."

"Oh."

She thinks about it. Sees the enormous room, the crowd all in retro gear – one of the reasons she loves it there, they do great forties nights and the blues and jazz and swing is phenomenal too, it is truly a great place, historic... She is babbling and has not even opened her mouth as yet.

A live band. Of her own. Their own. At the One Hundred Club.

"That is brilliant," she says slowly.

They wait.

"Thank you," she adds. It seems appropriate.

She says, "I think I've forgotten something-" and runs back into the block, all the way to her own flat. Locks herself in the bathroom and sits holding her ruby red hair pin, turning it over and over, slender and bright in her fingers. She wants to throw up but would hate to wreck this dress.

After a time she flushes to make it seem as if she needed to, even though no one is here, and washes her hands, letting cold water numb her.

The pin is back in her hair.

She can do this. Billie Rae can do this.

She walks back down to the street and smiles regally at Gin and Tony. "Let's go," she says. "I'm ready."

* * *

The club is at 100 Oxford Street, hence the name. The steps down inside to the performance space are lined with black and white photos of all the bands who have played here. The Stones. Bo Diddly. Everyone, really, all the way up to now, and bands like Kings of Leon. It is truly historic and fantastic and Molly knows the place very well. She just never thought she would be on the stage.

She, Gin and Tony meet their small band backstage. Molly gets the impression that none of the band know each other, or Gin, at all well. It makes her even more nervous, but then she remembers that she has practised the backing vocals all week and it will be fine. It is only a short set, anyway. Tonight is a kind of smorgasbord event, lots of small acts on a vintage theme.

"Tell her," Tony is saying to Gin urgently as Molly dabs more foundation onto her nose. Their dressing room is roasting hot and her makeup is sliding off. She cannot imagine having to actually dress in this oven. Tonight it is more of a holding area, thank god, because the band are already peering curiously at her as she puts red lipstick on. No way could she let them see even a part of the armoured bra.

"You've got to," Tony hisses.

There is a stand off, two feet away in the tiny concrete dressing room. Everyone steps back and looks at other things as Gin glares at Tony and pokes his chest with her pointed fingernail. He stands perfectly still. Molly sneaks a glance at him and sees that he is – trembling. The tension in the room is like the taut bounce in a high diving board. People mutter and shuffle.

"It was meant to be a surprise," Gin says, rolling her eyes. "Fine," she says, throwing up her hands, and before Molly can enquire, announces that she wants Molly to do lead vocals on a few of the songs.

Molly is horrified and yet calm. The worst that can happen is that she freezes out there, and if that happens, she knows that Tony will cover for her. "No problem," she says coolly, and holds put her hand for the set list. "Which ones?"

_Go girl,_ whispers Billie Rae. _You look a million dollars tonight and you are going to _own_ that spotlight._

Molly smiles. _Shush_, she thinks, but Billie Rae and the ruby pin are ready, and now the compere is calling their name.

* * *

Tonight's set is a mixture, but leaning heavily towards rock and roll love songs. Gin and Tony do _Don't go breaking my heart_, and Molly does lead vocals for _Be my baby_ and the crowd like it a lot.

Halfway through backing vocals for _Teenager in Love, _she sees him standing in a shaft of light as the exit door swings open.

Why is he here? Shouldn't he be working? She keeps focus and sings _in love, in love_ and tries not to stare at the black space where she glimpsed him before the door swung shut again.

She is not sure how she feels about him showing up here. Is it ... for her? But they are just friends. And that's fine. Isn't it?

There is a switch to a slower mood, dimmer lights – it is so professional here, just amazing! - and Molly sings _Black Coffee,_ not a perfect fit with the venue but it goes down a storm. Gin has snuck it in because it suits Molly's voice. She loves this key, she loves letting her voice soar on the yearning notes as the woman waits for her lover to come home, wondering where he is and who he is with this time, keeping herself away with caffeine and nicotine and mournful thoughts. Long and low and soulful and just how she likes it.

There is even – even a tiny silence after she releases the last note. The ultimate accolade. Then applause, and people stand up and clap and somebody takes a photograph and as she blushes and smiles and steps back out of the spotlight.

And to think that this all began, as so much has, with Sherlock.

* * *

She first discovered it in the morgue. It was just after Sherlock accepted her help, a difficult time for everyone, and she worked and worked to relieve the strain. Molly walked out of Sherlock's 'funeral'. John Watson was in pieces. The press went wild with damnation and speculation. The police were riddled with internal inquiries about their association with Sherlock. Everyone was lost without him, everyone had forgotten how vital he was until he was gone.

Meanwhile Sherlock roamed London, completed the tasks he set himself, driving himself mad with loneliness and misery, and texted Molly a thousand things she could not keep in case someone got hold of her phone.

Mostly they were random observations or requests for information which she did not have. Occasionally one would stop her in her tracks and she would stand, biting her lip, the screen watery in front of her eyes until she had the courage to type a reply and delete it and the message.

On that day she had been feeling a bit better, ignoring the giant lie which loomed over her life, and then he texted her:

_Please don't let them sell my violin._

She texted back, trying to reassure without making a promise on something she has no influence over, and then started crying. She went down to the morgue to recover, out of sight of the rest of the lab team.

The peace soothed her as always. Hard surfaces everywhere, a great echo, and suddenly she was humming some chart thing she'd heard in Coffee Supreme on the way to work. Her voice vibrated around the cool empty space and she thought, this needs something lower, richer, and she thought, _Love Letters_, and started singing the words she could remember. It came out so clear and deep that she was amazed.

After that she googled the lyrics in her lunch break and sang again, getting it note perfect.

Nobody heard, nobody was offended, nobody criticised, and she had the first inkling of a way out of her pointless, pathetic heartache.

A year on and Sherlock is now back officially, but Molly has recovered, has not exactly moved on, but gained control of it, this hopeless thing.

And in the process, discovered a whole new life.

* * *

After their set they come down into the club and see the rest of the acts. "Major benefit of performing," Tony says. "Free gigs!"

Gin comes back from seeing the manager and hands Molly cash payment for singing. Molly takes it, still bemused by being given money to do what she would do anyway, and immediately spends a chunk of it on drinks.

She is standing at the bar, thinking that it would be more retro if there was table service, when she feels a hand touch her bare shoulder. She jumps and turns round and sees a slight man her own height with thinning blonde hair, in a blue big pinstripe suit and tie, and black and white brogues. Mobster meets mod.

She smiles as he gives her a grin. "Hello, Phil. Saw you here earlier."

He grins back. "Guilty! Can I get you a drink?" He has an elbow on the bar and a tenner in his hand and his stance is full of manly bravado as he gestures to the nearest barman.

"What are you doing here?" Molly asks as his order, and hers, get sorted out. "Who's running the Beehive?"

"A mate. Turns out I'm not indispensable." His faint Lancashire twang comes through, a little bit Peter Kay, a little bit like the sports guy on Radio Two.

He has blue eyes, she notices. And a generous smile. "What did you think of Gin and Tonic?"

Phil grins broadly. "Their backing vocalist was stunning."

He joins their table. Tactfully he offers more general praise for the show.

And as the next act continues with some Seventies numbers, and Molly recognises _Islands in the Stream_, he stands up, takes Molly's hand and asks her to dance.

Gin looks pleased, as if she knew that would happen. Molly can't refuse when he is being so nice. So they move to the dance floor, and Phil takes her left hand, and spreads his left hand across her shoulder blades, and they sway for a while. And then he leans a little closer and rests his cheek against hers, and Billie Rae whispers, _See, I told you - you are unstoppable_.

* * *

Molly climbs out of the cab. It is now raining. She negotiates the trickling rivulet between the cab and the kerb and shuts the door.

Phil winds the window down. "Are you coming out tomorrow?"

"Probably not," she says. "I need my beauty sleep."

"No, you don't," he says. He leans out of the window and kisses her cheek. "Night, Molly."

"Night, Phil."

She turns and scuttles to the entrance of her block. As she mines her handbag for the keys, there is swirling black movement close by and a sense of being swooped down upon by a large and efficient bird.

Molly continues her hunt and discovers the keys. She unlocks the door and then turns to speak over her shoulder. "Are you crashing here tonight, Sherlock?"

* * *

**Author's Note: **The One Hundred Club as shown here bears little resemblance to the reality... I am pretty sure they would never book Gin and Tonic. But it is a great place.

You really would just walk there from Molly's flat. But I made the heels truly vicious. And who doesn't love a cab window farewell?

For any Brits reading: Sports guy on Radio Two is Matt Williams, who I think has one of the nicest voices on radio, challenging even Stuart Maconie and Martin Shankleman.

_Happy together _- The Turtles


	11. Inflammatory

_All I want to do is bake your bread _

_Just to make sure you're well fed _

_I don't want you sad and blue _

_And I just wanna make love to you_

* * *

He has become a fixture.

When he turns up she says "Coffee or wine," and sometimes he says "Food," and produces a bag of takeout from somewhere which does not actually do takeout, a proper restaurant which he has persuaded to wrap up its finest selection for him. They sit with it on their knees – she sacrificed her dining table to the sofa – and he complains about his day and she does too and it is quite convivial.

He now has his own duvet. It is the one she dug out for him the first night, now washed and with fresh covers on. It lives between the end of the sofa and the wall. At the end of the evening she says, "Are you staying?" and he either does or doesn't. If he is going to stay, she retrieves the duvet and puts it on the sofa beside him, then nods, leaves the room. She does not wish to even accidentally see him getting undressed.

He is always dressed when she gets up in the morning.

The first time he reached over the end of the sofa and grabbed the duvet, unasked, she stopped what she was doing – clearing up plates – and thought, _This is it. He now just lives here, when he wants to. I have a flatmate who pays no rent, does not help with the cleaning but who uses everything I have. Great._

He didn't say anything about it. Just pulled the duvet up over himself. "Cold," he said.

She fetched him her old dressing gown. The blue one. She now has a slightly smarter red satin one.

He put on the blue one without question. No Thank you. He said nothing about it, as if he truly was cold.

"You need to eat more," she told him, and that is a first time too.

_I am turning into John Watson,_ she thinks. _Except that John met someone and they fell in love and got married and moved on with their lives. And I am just here, with Sherlock in my flat._

"Sherlock," she says the morning after the dressing gown loan. "Bring some stuff here. If you're going to keep crashing here – it's fine, I don't mind – just bring whatever you need and leave it here. Make life easier."

She realises that this sounds a lot like she is trying to get him to move in with her. Get a drawer. But really, it is stupid if he keeps sleeping here, not to have pyjamas. Or at least his own dressing gown. He must have a dressing gown.

Maybe he doesn't.

He does. He puts it on the next night, a rather magnificent blue silk item, and sits in it over his shirt and suit trousers, wearing it like a Victorian smoking jacket, and seems far more comfortable. It gives him the requisite amount of flounce, she thinks. He wishes he was Zorro with a big flowing cape, but instead he has this. And that coat. "I'll get you a mask," she says, walking past him as he lies reading the paper one night. He gives her a puzzled look. "Zorro," she says, but this doesn't help.

He can google it, she thinks. She is not about to explain every passing cultural reference.

The coat is too heavy for her flimsy hooks. It has its own chair in the hall.

* * *

"Flaming Norah that was cracking," gasps Dee as they fall into a cab with their skirts rucked around them and their hair full of June rain.

The only thing not period about Dee is her speech.

"I can't feel my feet," says Molly, kicking off her shoes. They clatter onto the rubber lined cab floor. "Oh my God I haven't danced like that since-" She cannot think.

"Since ever," agrees Dee. "I told you it would be good."

"How did you persuade Phil to play music?" He had pushed back the tables, made a proper dance floor, played rock and roll music and Dee had led the charge to strut their stuff.

"I told him you'd dance with him all night if he did."

"You didn't! Oh my god!"

They giggle and bash each other on the arms and shriek with laughter as the cab swings round corners towards Dean Street.

"Come up," invites Molly. "My friend might show up, but that's ok, he'll just have to budge up on the sofa."

"Ok. Hang on," as they scramble from the cab in shoes their feet have now swollen too much to fit, "is this _the_ friend? C_e_lebrity crush bloke?"

"Yes. There he is."

Sherlock sweeps round the corner and comes face to face with them, the hem of his coat still in motion, and he halts.

He blinks and Molly sees him adjust his face into his public one- stern, quizzical, slightly disapproving. "Molly," he says in greeting.

"Hi Sherlock. Come up, it's pouring out here."

"This is Dee," she says as they dump coats in the hall. Molly flops on the sofa with her feet stretched out.

Sherlock steps to Dee and grasps her hand, exuding power. "Sherlock Holmes."

Dee blinks as she gets the full benefit of Sherlock's penetrating gaze. "Charmed I'm sure," she says.

Sherlock nods, whirls away. He looks down at Molly who is wincing and turning her feet in small circles. Without speaking he sits beside her and takes her right foot in his hand, and draws the shoe from her foot. She sighs as he repeats it for the left, then lifts both feet to rest propped on the coffee table.

"Thanks," she says, bemused.

"Keep them elevated. Three hours of high impact activity in constricted conditions has led to a temporary decrease in blood supply."

Molly turns her head to look at him. He still has his public face on. Serious and strict.

"You only deal with the dead," he says in response to something in her expression. "I also deal with the living."

"The dead," says Dee. She curls in the armchair and starts flexing her own feet. Sherlock makes no move to help her.

"I work in a lab," Molly says.

"Molly is senior pathologist at London's most prestigious hospital," says Sherlock.

"Blimey," says Dee. "I just switch databases on and off."

Molly shrugs. Wine and tiredness have lessened her resistance to openness.

Sherlock is staring at their outfits. Molly is in pale blue full length satin. Tight of course. Dee is in a red dress with black polka dots. Matching shoes. "Where have you been?" he asks curiously.

"Dancing," says Dee.

"Where?" Sherlock asks, then shakes his head. "No, don't tell me. You passed the cabbie a five pound note and got change, meaning you travelled no more than two minutes at current rates, which in this traffic gives a radius of around half a mile. Places to dance in the area prescribed, too many to eliminate. Places to dance dressed like that, three, but your excitement levels suggest you have been somewhere that this is considered illicit...not the done thing. Pupils, breathing, perspiration..."

He is staring at Dee.

"That's just the thrill of being here with you," she says, giving him an unimpressed look.

"I'll get that last bit of wine from the fridge," Molly says before Sherlock can do any more deduction.

Sherlock pulls wine glasses from the shelf and sets them on the coffee table. Molly pours. Sherlock hands Dee a glass very courteously.

Molly feels quite proud of him.

"How do you know Billie Rae," Dee asks then, and Molly kicks herself. She has never told Dee her real name, and although Dee has heard Sherlock use it just now, habit has made her use the one which is familiar.

"Work," says Sherlock without a pause, but his eyes are bright and slip towards Molly. She stares back brazenly.

"Makes sense," Dee says. "I know who you are," she adds.

"Of course," says Sherlock, and Molly sees the points dropping away from Dee's assessment of him. "Why are you wearing old clothes?" Sherlock asks Dee then, having obviously pegged her as the one most likely to spill the truth.

"We like it," Molly interrupts before Dee can blurt out anything else. "It's fun."

"And we look smokin' hot," adds Dee, challenging Sherlock with a glare to say anything else about perspiration.

Molly blushes. "Any case?" she asks Sherlock.

His eyes light up. "Yes! Remember the double poisoning? One suicide, one accident?" Molly nods. "The suicide wasn't," says Sherlock triumphantly.

He sits on the sofa at his end, Molly at hers, and Sherlock explains about the police's stupidity and his own grasp of obvious facts and how a chance remark made during a lecture he was attending sent him back to the morgue and -

Molly says "Oh, of course," at the end, because Sherlock found proof of foul play in the very cleverly faked suicide. "Now I'll be in trouble," she says. "I signed that one off." She giggles.

He stops dead. "Will you?"

"Not really," she says. "We all miss things." She gives him a smile.

"You could never have spotted it," he tells her earnestly.

"Way to build a girl up," says Dee, enthroned in Molly's armchair.

"Molly knows what I mean," says Sherlock stiffly.

"I can't believe you voluntarily attend lectures," says Dee, getting up to go to the bathroom.

Sherlock gives her an icy glare. "How else would I continue to learn?" he asks.

Dee just rolls her eyes and minces deliberately into the bathroom.

Molly goes to the kitchen in bare feet to put the kettle on. She would ask Dee to stay but there is nowhere for her to crash, with Sherlock here. She'll make her a cup of tea instead, call a cab.

When Molly turns, Sherlock is standing right behind her. "I'm going," he says.

"You don't have to. Stay." The bathroom is only eight feet away with thin walls. Molly cannot say _Dee won't be staying_, without her probably hearing.

He wrinkles his nose. "I don't do ... this kind of talk," he says.

"It's fine," she says. "She's just not used to you." But he shakes his head.

She shows him to the door. He wraps himself in his coat and scarf. "Let me ring a minicab," she says. "You'll get drenched."

"It's fine," he says. "-Your friend is right about one thing."

He is in the outside passage, one hand on the stair rail. His eyes travel down and up Molly's sky blue dress. He meets her gaze again and gives a microsecond smile. Dip of dark eyelashes. "Inflammatory," he says, and then bounds down the stairs.

"What's up with you," asks Dee, emerging from the bathroom. "You look like you're going to fall down frothing."

Molly leans on the locked front door. "Oh god," she says. "Every time. Every single time I think I have got over him, he just -"

"Oh my god, did he snog you?" Dee is incongruous in the extravagant red dress and bare feet with black painted toenails.

Molly's eyes are closed. "No. Just -"

Just looked at her with starving eyes and said something so straightforward and appreciative and _male_ she doesn't think she'll ever recover. "Give me wine."

She texts him. _Thank you_, and after a pause and a big glug of wine she adds, _Come back. Stay. We can talk more about the case. _She cannot think of anything else to entice him with.

Dee is dissecting the Beehive dance floor experience when the reply comes.

_Already at Baker Street. Another time. SH._

"Stop sexting, you two," says Dee. "Or I'll give him something to gawp at." She tugs at her bodice suggestively, and Molly hides her phone.

"No idea what you see in him," Dee says.

Billie Rae could give her a list. But Molly's list is shorter. "He's my friend," she says, "and I like him."

"Like him. Right. You keep telling yourself that," says Dee.

* * *

Sherlock's shoes are most likely ruined. He puts them with the pile of things to send out for cleaning. Maurice will sort it out.

He sheds the rest of his clothes into the same pile, and climbs into bed, pulling the sheet up to his navel. The cotton - high thread count Egyptian - is cool and smooth and comforting as always.

He likes this bed. It is large enough for him and reassuringly solid. It also has none of the lumps and none of the ... _historic_ ...scent of Molly's sofa. When he sleeps at Dean Street it is with lavender perfume and spilt Pinot Grigio and Hobnob crumbs and dust, so much dust. His own bed is clean and fresh, always.

He takes deep breaths to settle his mind. He is not truly ready for sleep but he did do some real work today and was soaked to the skin walking home, so sleep is the logical choice.

He runs through possible topics for thought until sleep comes, and after one second reaches the subject he has contemplated so much lately. It is no doubt wasteful to expend brain power on this. Yet he does. (Case permitting.)

He made a snap decision, irritated by the annoying friend, and spoke before he could start to think about it (in other words, to worry about it). And then... He complimented Molly Hooper in a very direct and definitely sexual way.

And she texted him afterwards to come back and talk more.

He does not need John, in this case, to tell him that this would generally be considered good. But it depends on your goals. Sherlock's goals fluctuate according to circumstance, mood and expediency.

The air in the room is cool on his bare chest but he lies still, registering his breathing and heart rate, wondering about the correlation if any between flattery and conquest, wondering if body temperature truly reflects sexual availability. (Likely. Although corpses are cold and they could be construed as available, in the most literal sense). Perhaps heat indicates sexual readiness. Or it is merely a metaphor.

Either way, it is now said and Molly appears to be pleased. This opens many possibilities, almost all of which are daunting.

He dwells on potential outcomes, that is to say, he lies awake worrying, until he realises that sleep is now hours away, and then gets up to make coffee.

* * *

**Author's Note: **This chapter - cut in two from a much longer piece - still seems sparse to me. Can't put my finger on how, but have now stopped fiddling with it and will rely on your feedback. Please let me know what you think worked or didn't. Thank you -Sef

_I just want to make love to you – _Etta James


	12. Prairie

So don't go breaking my heart

You take the weight off of me

Oh honey when you knock on my door

I gave you my key

* * *

The thing, the thing Molly has to keep reminding herself, is what a liar he is. The flattery. The smiles. It is part of his manipulative nature. He is good looking and knows it, and uses it to get his own way when he assess that his intended victim will respond as he wishes.

Molly has got over that phase of her life. Even an out and out compliment with nothing, apparently, to gain, might be part of some master plan to keep her on side. After all, he does keep coming round. Sleeping in her flat. Why? Does he in fact have a new Baker Street flatmate who is already odious? Has he blown the place up or otherwise rendered it uninhabitable as a result of taking his work home? (Has the work followed him home and put him in danger, sending him here for refuge?)

(Is he just lonely?)

He is a faker, a big faker.

-For such a faker sometimes he seems genuine. When no one is looking. When he is focused, when he has truly not noticed that she is there. He has a cool face which he wears most of the time. The beautiful face, angelic curve of his cheekbones, fine nose, flickering blue eyes beneath dark doe-like lashes, hair falling seemingly careless over his pale forehead, curling onto the smooth skin above his collar. Ethereal and icy. Hauteur made flesh.

There is a less cool face, frankly, a dorky face, which he has when he thinks he's truly alone. This face is not as handsome, his features not as set, his jaw looser and softer, his eyes not as hard. A younger face.

When he senses another presence he resets his face. But Molly is invisible to him and she has seen this secret face, and sometimes it is blank, as he stares at nothing, thinking his mysterious thoughts, and other times it is just tired and sad.

She remembers seeing two photos of Marilyn Monroe. In the first she is between takes, sitting on a windowsill, looking quite ordinary. The photographer has snapped her before she knew he had a camera. Then - she must have heard the click - she knows she is being photographed, and in the next shot, there is Marilyn: cheekbones lifted, lips turned a little up, body angled a touch more provocatively. She could do that. The photos are identical, almost. The first is her actually unaware, the second, is her acting unaware. In the second she is beautiful. In the first, she's just a girl.

Sherlock does that too. He is acting, most of the time. But sometimes he is just a man.

Molly finds those times make her feel even sadder than when he is being unpleasant. Those times make her wish for something, but she can't describe what it is enough to finish the wish and she is left with only the longing and not the vision which might turn longing into resolution.

* * *

Sherlock treats Molly's flat as his own. When he wants coffee he gets up and makes it. To be fair he makes it for her too. This gains him a point, which he is then apt to lose by taking an age in the shower when she has actually not quite finished in the bathroom. If proof were needed that the Sherlock immaculate appearance was carefully constructed, Molly has that proof. "Twenty five minutes, Sherlock! I've got to get into work!"

"I was as quick as I could be."

"You took your phone in with you. I am banning taking your phone into the bathroom."

He is welded to that phone. Billie Rae wants to hide it so that there is a chance of having a merely two way conversation. But she would have to tackle him to the floor to wrest it from his grasp, and so the phone is always there, often in his hand, flipping over and over in a distracting way as she is trying to watch television, or in his pocket, ever ready to be produced.

He does not, at least, ask her to pass it to him the way he used to with John. From his own pockets! Lazy swine. Of course these days he is showing up more often in jeans, and extracting a phone from someone else's jeans pocket - sometimes back pocket, but usually front right - is quite a different prospect from plucking it from a loosely open jacket. You would have to work your hand right into the denim and slide it down inside the pocket to get the phone, and god knows the jeans are as tight as his shirts.

She has caught herself, a few times, watching as he pushes the phone back into his pocket, shoving it into the denim over his hip.

Thank god he is so self absorbed. Because while Molly can convince herself that this is a love-crush-adoration thing, Billie Rae is thinking _Stop toying with that bloody phone or it's you and me, horizontal on the sofa, right now._

He knows he's doing it. She's sure of it. Almost sure.

But why?

* * *

Sherlock is lying on the floor of John and Mary's cream coloured living room, high up in a flat in a converted mill overlooking the Rochdale canal in Manchester. Their sofa would never allow him to stretch out properly.

John is sitting on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table. Mary has gone to bed. It was understood that Sherlock and John would stay up all night talking, probably, talking nonsense, and so she has sensibly removed herself. She has a similar plan for the next day too.

John has had a couple of beers. Sherlock too. He is becoming more tolerant of this purposeless socialising. He has reached his limit now though: brain cells are irreplaceable and he does not want to have to retrain too many neural pathways.

"How long have you known her? Five, six years?" John's question follows an apparently vague enquiry about Molly's wellbeing. Sherlock is not fooled.

"Sixteen."

John struggles with this for a moment. Sherlock waits. John knows there are large gaps in what Sherlock has told him about his life. He only mentions something if it becomes relevant. That fact never has.

John digests surprising information for a few more seconds and then asks in his pointed way, "And how long have you liked her?"

That presumes that he does. But the duration is immaterial. "Not relevant."

He realises that he has not refuted John's presumption. Damn. Never mind. John has worked it out anyway. He probably knew before Sherlock did, about the problem with Molly. Has probably been waiting for Sherlock to express something, so that John could stick his oar in. Sherlock doesn't really mind. Fact: John is better in this area than him. Girlfriends have never been Sherlock's thing.

"Has she still got this secret boyfriend?" John asks.

"Yes."

A pause. They listen to the sounds of drunken students staggering home down in the street.

"Sorry," says John at last. "You might have missed the boat on this one."

Sherlock makes a non committal noise. He has plans. He is still debating whether to share any of them with John.

"That's not to say there won't be other boats -"

"John, please avoid metaphors. It doesn't suit you." Sherlock stretches out his hand and just touches John's shin on the coffee table to let John know he does not mean it unkindly.

"I'm just saying there are more - opportunities." John is staring at the ceiling, his beer bottle propped on his chest.

"Not interested," says Sherlock. He thinks of Molly in the lecture hall smiling at him for no reason. He thinks of her coming to ask him to the ball. How brave and determined she was.

John sits up, frowning. "There's not just one person for someone."

"Not interested."

"All right. I'm just saying. And since you never made the least effort to -" He stumbles. "Woo her," he says after a moment. "Then it can't have been that big a deal."

Sherlock jumps up, blood running away from his head, making him a little faint. He goes and stands on the balcony. The canal glints darkly below. Faux Victorian lanterns line the towpath.

After a while he says over his shoulder. "Yes. It's not a problem."

There is no reply and then John's voice says softly close by, "I don't believe you."

* * *

John has gone to join Mary in the bedroom. Sherlock is supposed to be in their spare room, but has settled in the lounge instead. If he lies with his head near the French doors he can look up and see the sky. Not stars – too much light pollution – but the idea is there.

He reflects on the occasions he has kissed Molly: there have been several times, on the cheek. (And the one time she kissed him, on the mouth, when they were both so young. She is so uncomplicated. She knows (knew) what she wanted, and set out to get it.)

Molly tastes... peaceful. Her skin is so fine and smooth. Her hair is soft, that unexpected softness when a bird brushes you with its wing as it passes. She smells of apricots on a market barrow in a sunny French square.

She has a freckle in the web between her right middle and ring fingers. She wears brown mascara to work - very subtle - but should wear black, bold black, because her eyes are bright and large and could stand the attention (from him). She wears chapstick to work but lipstick on dates. Flat shoes or boots in the lab, including some nice brown leather knee-high boots which look good with a skirt, which make him think of a girl on a ranch in some fantasy of Midwest America, a warm homely girl who can cook and sew but also chop logs and smack a two tonne bullock on the rump and say _Giddup_. He has no idea why these images are so appealing. Molly sits at her desk in the boots, but he has noticed when she goes to the Ladies that her stride has a little more prairie to it.

He supposes that he is in love. He certainly has no desire to end their acquaintance, and increasingly, the idea of her having some other boyfriend disturbs him. It never did before.

Because, he realises, he knew she would always come back.

But this secret boyfriend has her full attention. Even when it all ends, Sherlock does not feel confident that Molly will revert this time. This secret has changed her. She is stronger, bolder...

(Sexier.)

That is a word he does not use but is using now.

He is not even sure he likes those ideas together, Molly and sexiness, but he admits that he spends longer debating this than it warrants. And if he admits that she is sexy, then he is also admitting that he would like to do something about it.

But what?

At this late stage, what could change her mind?

* * *

**Author's note:** the other half of the previously very long chapter. Your feedback is welcomed. Criticism is not taken personally so please say if you think something could be stronger, better, different.

_Don't go breaking my heart_ – Elton John


	13. Vertiginous

_Hey little thing, let me light your candle_  
_'Cause mama I'm sure hard to handle, now, yessir'am_

* * *

"Phil... Did you draw this?"

Molly is sitting on a bench in the newly greened Leicester Square, holding an A4 sheet of paper. Phil is beside her, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees as she looks at the sheet. For once it is sunny and starting to feel like the start of June. The bright light reflects back into Molly's face.

The sheet shows a picture, a silhouette of a woman in a form fitting full length dress and a microphone on a stand. The woman has a narrow waist and generous hips and ... bust.

At the bottom of the sheet in Swinging Sixties font is the name, Billie Rae.

"Photoshopped it from a snap of you at the Hundred Club," says Phil. He glances at Molly rather shyly. "It's all you," he says.

She goes pink. She had been thinking that he enhanced her somewhat, especially around the bosom. "What's it for?" she asks, handing it back.

"Posters," says Phil. "I'm doing them for all my regulars. You, Vic, Dee, Tony. I just did you first."

He sticks the poster into his satchel and takes out two cans of Coke. "Pop?"

She takes a can and cracks it. Cold sparkling coke, sunshine, green and gold leaves shimmering overhead, the buzz of tourist London all around... a perfect afternoon.

"You are coming in tonight, aren't you?" Phil asks her.

"At the weekend." Molly has a plan for Saturday night but has not committed to it yet. It depends on Sherlock, but he has vanished this week: a case. She has missed him. He might not say much, but he is a steady presence in the flat, like a perfectly composed bronze sculpture, dark and warm at one end of her sofa.

Molly's phone chimes. A text from Gin. _Wear the blue dress tonight, we're going to be in silver and blue._

Molly hesitates. _I have plans tonight. See you soon M x_

"You're not going to up and leave us for Gin and Tonic, are you?" Phil asks.

Molly laughs. "No. I have a real job. And I don't think I could get on with Gin well enough. She's very... "

She hesitates. Gin has given Molly some amazing experiences. But she is so intense, so claustrophobic, all the time.

"Loony," says Phil. "Bags not be in her dentist's chair." He twirls his forefinger next to his temple.

"I think she only does the handing over of mouthwash," says Molly, "but I know what you mean."

They chuckle, a little guiltily. "She has great gear though," Molly says. "Everything she wears is the real thing. I love that."

"You're the real deal," Phil says intently.

Molly stands before he can try to kiss her. "Well, better get back to work. It was a bit cheeky coming all the way out here to start with." But lunch out was a nice idea on a day like this. And it is not a date, it is only Phil. Except that he wishes it _was_ a date, which is awkward.

She texts Sherlock as she walks. _Curry tonight, are you coming round?_

No reply.

She heads down into the fluorescent no-time of the Tube and leaves summer behind. Sherlock's case continues. Molly's plan will wait. The weekend is fine. Or the one after that, also fine.

But as she arrives back at her desk at the morgue and puts down her bag, there he is, splendid in black with his clever fingers on the dials of the microscope, and he doesn't look up but says, "Curry. Yes," and Molly smiles.

* * *

Sometimes he arrives and she is not home. He texts her. Usually she is at work. She replies rather sarcastically, depending on the time of day and day of the week, an explanation of conventional jobs, money and rent. He texts back an acknowledgement of her need to fulfil mundane social conventions and then, according to his texts, goes away, does more of his own equally valid and far more interesting work, and returning when she is home to open the door.

But one time she gets back earlier than she told him, and he is sitting in the passage outside her door, reading a medical journal and his phone simultaneously, just waiting like a cat to be let in. And she wonders.

After that she has a fight with herself, which she wins and loses, and when he is settled on the sofa next time, his feet on her coffee table, the TV remote in his hand and a mug of black coffee at his elbow, she places a key next to the mug and looks at him.

He puts down the remote and takes the key. He holds it between thumb and two first fingers, and then slides it into his inside jacket pocket - still looking at her.

She nods and walks away to boil pasta.

She is standing in the kitchen, waiting for the carbonara sauce to microwave (Nigella has nothing to fear from Molly's culinary prowess) when she hears a rustle like wings and then his lips are on her cheek.

She turns but he is back in the lounge frowning at her copy of the A-Z and stroking his thumb over his phone.

_Sherlock_, says Billie Rae, _get back here and let me kiss you properly._ But Molly is silent. She has known Sherlock a lot longer than Billie Rae and knows that a kiss is another way to manipulate people, to silence them, to bend them to your will. It does not mean what it would mean from anyone else.

A pity, because his kisses are lovely. Sweet and silent, a mere press of lips to skin. No moist smacking. No grabbing or groping. He just kisses, and retreats. It is seductive, or it would be if it meant anything.

Billie Rae thinks she will try one of those kisses out on him one day, just to see what he does.

Molly thinks Billie Rae needs to shut up now before something irreparable happens.

Billie Rae smiles and looks at the man on the sofa and says to Molly, _You're in love with him and I'm in lust with him and there's nothing wrong with either thing. He might reject you but he could not resist me, look at me in sequins and heels, singing to him, he would be blown away._

But Molly is not sure she wants him blown away. Settled here, contented on the sofa perhaps. Getting to know him a little, that would be nice.

_Think big,_ urges Billie Rae.

_Remember the fall_, says Molly.

_One kiss_, says Billie Rae. _One sweet kiss to see if he really is just a big faker._

_Ok_, says Molly. _But not right now._

_Soon_, says Billie Rae. _ Soon_.

* * *

"What's wrong with Phil?" Dee asks one evening on the phone. Molly is at home deciding on dresses for Saturday. Her plan will happen this Saturday, definitely. She has promised herself (promised Billie Rae.) But the dress needs to be right, and so the bedroom is a mass of spangle.

"Nothing! I just don't like him like that." The ruby red, she thinks. It has the most oomph without being slutty. In Sherlock terms, the correct oomph-to-slut ratio. She smiles.

"I've heard you sing, pigeon. You're a cauldron of unbridled lust," cackles Dee. "Just go for it. Not everything has to be love's young dream. Sometimes all you need is a bloody good shag."

"Dee! I don't. -I just don't fancy him." She likes Phil very much. He is sweet and funny. And he makes it clear that he likes her. Clarity is somewhat absent in other areas of her life. But she cannot imagine being in bed with Phil. And she certainly cannot envisage him in the bloody good shag category. (That particular shelf is mostly empty.)

"Then you need to do something about Mr I Can Analyse Your Sweat, because you my girl have the aura of someone who hasn't had any for a very long time. Live a little!"

"I am," Molly says."I am doing something about Sherlock." But this is it. This is the last time. He has to step up and ... do something too.

"Tell me," commands Dee

"You'll see soon enough," says Molly, and ends the call.

She puts the dresses away and checks her phone for messages from Sherlock. Nothing. But it is only Tuesday. There is time.

* * *

It is eight o'clock that night when he arrives home in a wild state and won't take his coat off or sit down. It has been a while since Molly saw him like this. He has finished a case, she infers. Usually at this point he vanishes to Baker Street, with John, and they go to the pub or do whatever it is blokes do to unwind. She cannot imagine Sherlock shouting at the footie. More likely he and John just flop on the sofa and John tries to get Sherlock to eat something.

She knew this was coming. He has refused anything but coffee and three sugars, for four days. He says vaguely that he eats when she doesn't see but this is an obvious lie. He is as pale as death and has the sunken eyes which come from dehydration. People forget that a great deal of fluid intake comes from the food consumed. And coffee is a diuretic.

Sherlock knows this but ignores it in favour of his own theory about brain power and digestion.

"Tell me about the case," Molly says, making hot chocolate for them on the grounds that it has some milk protein in it, a slight start on refuelling Sherlock.

"I need to write it down. My blog." He is vibrating with pent up tension and unmanaged hunger.

"Go on then."

But he doesn't move. Stands hovering under the wallpapered arch which separates her kitchen from the living room. "I need to ring John," he says.

"Ok," says Molly.

He frowns at her, his face a mixture of pain and puzzlement. "Why don't you mind?" he asks.

"He's your best friend. You always do cases together. Why would I mind? Anyway, he'll be desperate to know. I bet you haven't been answering his texts either."

Sherlock's face shows her she is right. Honestly, how do people put up with him?

She hands him the mug of hot chocolate. "Drink this, ring John, take a shower," she suggests. "It'll calm you down. And you do have some... " she peers ... "brain fluid on you."

He laughs, surprised. "It's hydraulic oil," he says. He takes off the jacket, turns it inside out and puts it on the back of the sofa. "Brain fluid would have soaked in."

"I know," she says, and turns back to the kitchen, smiling.

He does ring John. There is a very animated conversation and he ends up taking her phone out into the main landing because her flat is not large enough for him to stride back and forth as he needs to. She lies on the sofa with the telly on but the sound muted because she is listening to him through the open front door, explaining about drugs in iced boxes of fish at Billingsgate, and using a loading crane as a murder weapon and how nobody believed Sherlock until the scales on the windscreen wipers proved it.

There are brief gaps in Sherlock's narrative flow and Molly imagines John telling Sherlock he is amazing, extraordinary, unique.

She goes to put her empty mug back in the kitchen and peeks into the landing. Sherlock is still pacing but more slowly, and he is smiling, his shy embarrassed smile because John is telling him nice things.

Molly thinks that one day soon she will see that smile aimed at her.

While he is in the shower she puts some music on and stands ironing tomorrow's blouse and singing along. It's _Wichita Lineman_ and she cannot reach the highs and lows the way Glen Campbell can, but it doesn't matter because she loves the story it tells. She wonders if Tony could sing it. No, not Tony. Phil. Phil rarely performs these days but sometimes he can be persuaded to come out from behind the music machine. He has a nice voice.

She stops ironing and texts him. _Hi Phil. You should sing Wichita Lineman! Molly_

He has promised not to tell anyone her real name. She hasn't told him anything about her job. Or Sherlock. Why would she?

He texts back. _When R U coming in?_

She pauses. Sherlock is going to need awhile. _At the weekend._

_Can I take U for a drink B4 then?_

She winces.

Dee warned her about this. So did Billie Rae, if it comes to that. Billie Rae, turns out, has excellent man-radar and knows the instant a man's eye falls on her bottom. Molly is better at spotting other people's romances.

Sherlock appears, disconcertingly half dressed in trousers and no shirt. He is rubbing a towel over his hair. "Are you going out tonight?" he asks, seeing the phone in her hand.

"No," she says, and puts it away.

"Dinner?" he suggests then.

Good. He is in eating mode. "OK, I can ring the Indian-"

"No, I mean, dinner. Out. There's a place on the South Bank that owes me a favour... anyway, the food's pretty good."

"Ok. Let me just change out of work clothes."

She switches off the iron and as she walks past him she sees an odd look in his eye. An expectant look.

She goes into her bedroom and shuts the door. Pulls open the wardrobe. Dinner with Sherlock. Outside these four walls. That's a first.

It's no big deal. John has probably suggested it. John has probably told him to start paying her rent. If John knows about him being here, basically, all the time.

Still. Sherlock always looks so smart.

She thinks of the bundle of plastic-coated shirts, delivered to the flat by Sherlock's dry cleaner. The purple one is nearest. There is also that deep scarlet one.

She whips off the jersey top and beige trousers (OK, but very worky) and takes out the sateen grey minidress. It is meant to be accompanied by white patent boots (like Gin's: Molly has still not asked her where she got them and how much they cost) but for a mere meal out it is too much, far too much. Molly is not being Billie Rae tonight. She is being her.

She puts on a flowing skirt and smock top with a gathered bodice. Kind of a cowgirl thing. Pulls on her brown boots. They are nice, but low heeled and definitely not glamorous: Sherlock will not be able to read anything into this outfit.

She pauses, then sweeps her hair back into a ponytail low on her nape. Sticks in the ruby pin – of course – and spritzes everything liberally with Elnett. Spritzes again, cleavage and elbows, with some summer-style fragrance from Next. Quick jiggle of mascara - her brown stuff is in the kitchen, it will have to be her Billie Rae black. And done.

The whole thing takes less than five minutes. She is good at decision making. It was on her appraisal.

Molly emerges from her room and steps into the lounge.

Sherlock is in his suit and jacket, hunched on the edge of the sofa. (The deep red shirt.) He looks up as she comes in. His eyes widen. She thinks he is going to comment, but he just says, "Ready?"

"Yes. I'll put lipstick on in the cab."

He stands. His hair is still damp and he is dazzlingly clean-shaven. She takes a breath and releases it slowly. She has never seen anyone more beautiful in her whole life. And that's why there are so many empty shelves in Molly's store of men.

"I hope you're not afraid of heights," Sherlock says into the growing silence as they gaze at each other.

"Um. No?"

"Good. Where we're going is somewhat vertiginous."

Vertiginous. Hah. _No more than just standing here with you and wondering if at the end of tonight you will let me wrap my arms around your neck and kiss you and close my eyes against your cheek and tell you how much I love having you near, all the time, always. And ask you if you feel the same._

"I think I'll cope," says Molly.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

_Hard to handle_ - Otis Redding


	14. Wary agreement

_You're a no good heart breaker_  
_You're a liar and you're a cheat_  
_And I don't know why_  
_I let you do these things to me_

* * *

The evening gradually sharpens into focus. Sherlock is sitting on the roof of the Oxo Tower, notionally in the restaurant but actually at a table set outside, next to the parapet. Molly is here too. Time has passed and it is now approaching ten p.m.

Molly is eating mascarpone cheesecake, a two inch disc thereof, with a black pepper and strawberry coulis trickled around the rim of her plate. She had lamb shank prior to that. No starter.

He has eaten too. Beef. Many tiny vegetables. He needs the red blood, the iron. Deduction wears down his supply of minerals.

There has been conversation. Rapidly he reviews it. He has mostly been drifting in his post case moil, allowing the myriad minor details to settle into default storage positions, allowing his mind to relax. But there have been a few topics: his case again, (60%) John and Mary, (5%) another likely promotion for Molly (he asks on a twelve month cycle and is rarely disappointed - 15%), and a recent report into the use of colour-changing fluorescent films in finding otherwise undetectable fingerprints on hard surfaces (20%, and it would have been more if dessert had not arrived and silenced them.)

Now he has ice cream. Vanilla, no adornment, in a small bowl.

The view is of the river and is uninterrupted by sight or sound of other diners because whilst the restaurant has a floor to ceiling glass wall, Sherlock and Molly have a little table outside, only air between them and the London skyline. Other patrons are inside, wondering.

The sky is still bright at ten in the evening in June and the sun flashes off the towers of the City ranged around the curve of the river. There is no breeze. Visual memory confirms this: Molly's hair, which is gathered loosely at the nape of her neck, has not been stirred except by her own nervous pats of check and reassurance.

So: he is up to date. The ice cream is soft, rounded, pooling a little in the dish. Sherlock takes a spoonful into his mouth, lets it rest on his tongue, then slip away down his throat. The texture is a caress, the rich mix of fat and sugar sending signals of satisfaction to his brain before the food goes anywhere near his stomach. "Ice cream is primal," he remarks. "It fills the needs for satisfaction and comfort."

"Then cheesecake is the next step up," says Molly. She licks blood-red coulis from the back of her spoon. Her tongue rests against the smooth hard curve. "More texture."

"Lack of texture speaks to our earliest experiences of food," Sherlock says. "A baby's first meal at its mother's breast." He pushes away his empty bowl.

Molly bathes her spoon in strawberry and sighs at the last mouthful. Her lipstick is long gone. Her lips, free of any enhancement, are clean, soft, supple and later he will –will he? kiss them, taste her, make her shiver.

It is time, because if he waits any longer he will talk himself out of it and recent progress will be negated. And she looks suitable tonight. He can imagine it, with her in this crinkled blouse, and the prairie boots. Harder to picture the scene with her in an evening gown of some kind like the blue thing she had on when she was with the annoying friend. Yes, she looked enticing, but not in a way which makes him able to step near and actually do anything about it. His old problem.

Perhaps he will do it on the walk back along the river. In the shadow of the old galleon? Location should be irrelevant apart from practical and privacy issues. But it isn't. Location is one of the many weapons of romance, a deciding factor. It is similar to murder: whilst most killings happen in mundane domestic situations (usually the kitchen, where knives are readily to hand), premeditated murders require a location which allows the element of surprise. You cannot simply be chatting and then stab someone in the eye. Well, you could, but you would have to be fast. But if your victim is distracted by some event or vision, you have a better chance of striking while they are agog and not thinking about how to fight back. Similarly, the emotional aspect must be present in murder: even those who plan, rarely do it coldly. It is better to have a trigger, a way to access the reasons for the act than risk hesitation at the crucial moment. So it is, also, with romance.

There has to be a reason for mouths to meet. And momentarily he cannot think of any.

"Are you OK?" Molly asks. "You look – Are you all right?"

"Fine," he says. He waves at the waiter, and they stand to leave. No bill. He rarely pays for a meal in this town, these days. It is not only the cases. Has become famous, since the Fall. People are sufficiently curious about him to want him in their establishments. He obliges when it suits him. Like now.

Molly's eyes are aimed at him, full of concern. "You're still het up from the case," she says.

"Hmmn." And from thinking about her in those boots.

"I know what will calm you down," she says, pulling out her phone. "It's not far from here." She dials and speaks briefly to someone called Vic. "Brilliant! I'll buzz you when we're round the back. Thanks Vic, you're a star. Oh shush." Coy smile, phone away.

Sherlock is intrigued, but Molly only gives him a flash of her eyes and leads the way down to street level.

He scans as they walk towards the London Eye. She is excited and expectant: pleased to be able to help him, and surprise him. Where are they going? Walking distance, further than if Molly were wearing high heels, but still classifiable as 'near': half a mile or so. Somewhere restful? Numerous images spring to mind. A building - parks, gardens and the Eye itself do not have a 'back'. Ah.

So how will she get them inside when it has been closed to the public for at least three hours? Presumably this Vic works there – security guard, most likely – and will open the door.

He is correct. Behind the old County Hall buildings, some concrete steps lead to an unmarked metal door and a small man with silver hair and a uniform marked _Knox Services_ is standing holding the door ajar.

Molly runs ahead and gives the man a hug and kiss, then turns to beckon Sherlock into the cavernous dark of the night-time London Aquarium.

* * *

Molly's hand is small and soft in his as she leads him to the main auditorium, a giant dim space with a sloping glass wall. Behind the wall, a million gallons of tropical seawater, some replica Easter Island statues, and sharks.

Molly lets go of him and points to the narrow carpeted shelf directly beneath the sloping wall of the enormous tank. "Lie down."

He does, amused by his passive role. He looks up. A shark flies overhead, majestic, turning its nose this way and that, always seeking. From this angle the glass is invisible and it like lying on the ocean floor.

He lets out a short laugh of surprise and delight.

Molly laughs too. "I told you it was good," she says.

He sticks out a hand and catches her wrist. "You do it too."

So she stretches out on the shelf, the top of her head a few inches from his, and they lie watching the sharks, and rays, and some large silvery fish which must not be the prey of either. It is quiet and dim and the tank is a mix of stillness and motion which Sherlock finds mesmerising. And Molly is here with her own flavour of calm.

He shuffles along the shelf so that their scalps are touching. He sighs, and they lie still for a long time.

He watches the fish, feeling the heat from her head radiating into his own, and back, and the case begins to solidify and pass into memory, and gradually he notices that he is falling asleep.

-Eyes open. The space is still dark. The biggest shark is hanging above him.

He sits up. "Molly." But she is asleep. He estimates that only a couple of hours have passed. Midnight.

Molly is breathing evenly, lips parted, face soft and calm. An opportunity. Permissions issues? He ought to ask, really. But she never did.

He crouches beside the low shelf, bends and touches his lips to hers. Oh. Wonderful. This is how it ought to be, his lips on hers and no complicated talking or movements or thinking about it. (What is wrong with him? He is basically wishing to love a statue.) She tastes faintly of strawberry.

He slides his hand into hers as it hangs, drowsy, from the shelf, and sits on the floor with his back to the tank, looking now into the darkened auditorium, imagining a silent audience for the fish, and him, and Molly.

"Sherlock."

He jumps, tilts his face up to her. She is stretching and sitting up, still holding his hand.

She smiles. "Hello." She lifts his hand in hers, and holds it affectionately against her cheek for a moment. (No sound. Warm breath on the hairs of his hand.) "Ok?"

"Yes." It is OK. He is OK. He feels strange, slightly dizzy. Emotional strain as he tries to work out all the permutations of this scenario. He is holding a woman's hand and therefore there are expectations but also it is Molly and her hands fits easily into his.

She keeps hold of his hand and slides down off the shelf to sit on the floor beside him. They sit for a few moments, marvelling at the hand-holding.

He has already decided what he is going to do. He simply needs to do it. (He wishes he had a cigarette, right now.)

He turns to her, and she to him, and their eyes meet, and it is obvious what is going to happen, which makes it awkward, except that he must not think about awkwardness, just about -

He touches her face with his left hand, and leans in, and she comes halfway to meet him, and he kisses her lips very gently, his palm on her jaw. Her right hand reaches for him and her fingers tangle in the hair at the back of his head, as she holds him to the kiss and then lets go.

They part, and sit darting glances at each other. Hands still joined in a wary agreement.

Sherlock's heart is racing, and his mind pounds along too, giddy with all the meanings. He knew (almost certainly) that she would let him, knew she wanted that, but he had forgotten what is it like to be skin to skin with another person. He has an intoxicating sense of connecting with a moment from his own distant history, with all the Mollys which have existed between then and now. He is time travelling, sitting here on a scratchy carpet with this person he has known since they were both nineteen. She is different now, of course, (surface details) - yet exactly the same. It is powerful.

Molly abandons his hand abruptly. He thinks she is going to bolt, but she just twists round so that she is kneeling facing him. He moves too and they end up in a weird kneeling hug which ends with her pressing her nose into his neck and him with a face full of her hair. "Insufficient," he says, and topples them sideways so that they are on the floor, arms wrapped round each other, side by side, and then he can kiss her again, and again. He is recreating himself, all the stray pieces which have been scattered by the years, by events, and every time he lays his mouth on her skin he feels more whole.

She has her arms tightly around him, her hands in his hair, caressing his neck, and looking at him with eyes full of astonishment – and hope. She pulls him in to kiss him more passionately but he dodges. She frowns briefly, (hurt by rejection but he cannot explain now), but allows him to continue pressing his face to hers, his lips to her mouth, eyes, eyebrows, cheekbones, ears, lips again, silently retrieving his constituent parts, putting them together, seeking something complete. Her body has tensed though, and as he pauses, her eyes are dark and uncertain. She takes a breath, her mouth forming the shape of suspicion, and then his phone rings.

* * *

** Author's Note:**

_I never loved a man (the way I love you)_ - Aretha Franklin


	15. Cracked cup

_I believe in miracles_

_Where you from?_

_You sexy thing_

* * *

She hoped Sherlock would appear back at Dean Street later... even much later. But when the alarm wakes Molly, the flat is silent and there is no Sherlock flaked out on the sofa. She makes herself a coffee, looking at the mug which is notionally his, and dresses. He has a case. She will probably see him at some point today. Lipstick, therefore.

"Come with me," he said as they left the aquarium. "Be my pathologist." His eyes were aglow. "I've always wanted one."

"Greg Lestrade won't want me at his crime scene. Anyway, some of us have work in the morning." She smiled up at him.

"Some of us have work _now_," he replied, but looked at her fondly. She drank it in, his dark amusement -for her, at that moment.

He lifted his arm and a cab appeared at the kerb. "Take this one," he said.

She was gripped by a fear that he would walk away and never refer to any of it again, and the kisses, the gasps and cries and clinging to each other, would never have happened. She put her hand on his arm and kissed his cheek. "I want more kisses," she whispered, Billie Rae to the fore and self-preservation left standing appalled by the wayside.

He opened the taxi door and handed her in. At the final moment he gave her a gimlet stare and said "Good," and then slammed the door. Two taps on the roof of the cab and it shot away, and Molly turned but Sherlock was striding into the darkness with his phone against his jaw.

She had terrible sleep. How could such chaste kisses have this effect? But she is burning up with anticipatory desire. And he did not come back last night.

His slippers are under the coffee table. His dressing gown is folded up under her cushions.

She feels loss as an immediate and shocking pain, in her stomach, her throat. Ridiculous. She has kissed him once - well, many times, but one set of kisses – and they have not spoken one word about what it meant or if that now means they are a couple, or what – and yet she misses him as if they had sworn eternal love, the kind of missing that brings tears to your eyes and a lump to your throat so that you have to stand on the railway platform pretending to smile as the train pulls away.

His kisses. Incredible. Pure passion in touch, even though it was merely lips, nothing more, and nowhere more intimate than her face was involved. His hands barely roamed, caressing her back, but mostly just holding her close.

She kissed him too, of course. His mouth, his chin, jaw, his smooth neck. Her hands in his hair, soft curls, his breath on her face. She goes hot remembering it.

She picks up her phone to send him the message which has been in Draft on her phone for a week. The unsent version reads, _Beehive, Saturday night,_ with a picture attachment of the Billie Rae poster created by Phil. Before she can do anything with it, she sees there is a text waiting for her.

Not from him.

It is Gin, complaining about being let down again and asking if Molly can do tonight, at the Pinstripe.

Molly frowns. Tonight would be a good night to...collapse on the sofa with Sherlock and do more kissing, a lot more. He flinched away from her last night when she moved to kiss him properly – maybe in the privacy of her flat they can work it out.

She certainly finds it hard to contemplate an evening with Gin and Tonic and Gin's manic intensity.

Her phone beeps. Still not Sherlock. Gin again. _My voice has gone. You'll be doing lead vocals._

Oh. Well, that is rather different. _Can I choose some of the songs? M x_

A pause. Then: _OK. Run it past Tony. See you at eight._

Molly's acceptance is taken as a given.

Molly shrugs. The Pinstripe it is, then. And a band, not karaoke...and maybe her message to Sherlock is still applicable.

She changes it before pressing Send: _Pinstripe Bar, tonight from nine. Hope you can make it. M x. _The Billie Rae picture takes a moment to upload.

She slurps coffee, checking the time. A few minutes before she absolutely has to run out the door. She texts Dee. _Oh ye of little faith. You'll never guess what happened last night. M x_

No reply. Rush hour for everyone. Molly slings her empty mug in the sink and grabs her bag. Time for work, and if Sherlock is involved, there is bound to be an interesting body to examine.

* * *

At work she is immediately sidetracked into a meeting: the police have lodged a (completely unfounded) complaint about the way a particular case was handled, claiming it led to damaged evidence.

"Let me deal with that," Molly says grimly. Her manager begins to speak and she cuts him off. "There is no way that what they're saying is true. Let me get my records and then I will ring them and tell them exactly what took place and why the damage to the evidence happened whilst in police care not ours." Everyone blinks and they move quickly to the next agenda item.

The meeting drags and then afternoon is taken up with urgent exams after a virus outbreak in the hospital. Another meeting, this time about mentioning anything at all to the press on pain of death. This is not a threat which particularly terrifies a room full of pathologists, but still, everyone knuckles down and the tests are done and the results rushed to the consultant and then it is time to go home.

"You were on fire today," Harjit says to Molly as they put their coats on. "I didn't dare breathe."

"Yes, well." She is strongly motivated to blitz through work and go and find Sherlock.

"Oh, I see," says Harjit, even though Molly has tried very hard not to smirk. "Had a good evening, huh?"

"Is it that transparent?" Molly does not even care that she is now bright pink.

"Totally. Who's the lucky fella?"

"Tell you later." Harjit has views on Sherlock. Everybody has views on Sherlock. If this is going to become a thing, him and her, Molly will have to work out a way to break it to people which does not involve her apologising.

"Suit yourself. See you tomorrow." Harjit gives her a wink. "Have a nice night..."

Molly grimaces awkwardly at the innuendo. "I've just thought of something. See you."

She returns to the lab and checks the log sheet. Yes. Her brief glance earlier while the staff were clearing up, was correct: they are one person short. She checks the name. Karen Frobisher. Removed by order of DI Lestrade. Currently in the police lab.

Odd. Because this, in effect, _is_ the police lab.

She will ring Greg Lestrade tomorrow and have words, find out why one of her bodies is missing. And why Greg appears to think that she, Molly, is incapable of doing this exam.

Meanwhile...

Molly hails a cab at the kerb. If she is doing lead vocals tonight, there are important dress decisions to be made.

* * *

"Wear this," says Gin without ceremony as Tony starts the van engine.

The three of them are crammed in the front seats of Tony's plumber's van. Their costumes, plus some of the band's gear, are in the back. Molly is squashed between Gin and Tony, her knee held awkwardly so as not to impede the gearstick. Or Tony's leg.

"I've got my own outfits," Molly says mildly.

"This is special. Wait til you see it." Gin's voice does sound worse today. She is looking a little rough, in fact: grey skin, greenish shadows under her eyes. She does not look capable even of backing vocals. No wonder she has been so reliant on Molly, Dee, and others to provide some supporting voices.

For the first time, it strikes Molly that Gin is ill. "Are you ok?" she asks.

She senses Tony's flinch even as Gin says sharply, "Mind your own bloody business. You're here to do a job, that's all."

"Gin," says Tony apologetically.

"Shut it. We're already late."

Molly frowns. "I'm doing this as a favour," she points out, aware that the cab of a speeding car is not the best place to start a fight.

"Yes, and we're really grateful, aren't we," says Tony.

"Yes," says Gin, sounding not in the least sincere. The van's diesel engine rattles flatly like a spoon on a cracked china cup.

"Gin's been under a lot of pressure lately," Tony says.

"Work," says Gin firmly, daring Tony with a look to contradict her.

"Right," says Molly. She cannot imagine how much pressure a dental nurse might be under. And surely – work – you can fix work? Molly has always fixed work, when work becomes a problem. She cannot envision tolerating any situation which made her unhappy.

Well, apart from one situation. But that appears to have resolved itself.

"You all right?" Tony asks, glancing sideways at her. She resets her face to one with less ... swoon. "Looking forward to it?"

Molly thinks of her special guest. Will he come and sit at the front? Oh god no. At the back, please. She does not think she can cope with a Sherlock scan while she is singing. But she does want him to see her, hear her, know this other part of her. "Yes." She gives Tony a smile and catches a strange, acquisitive look from Gin as she turns back. "Did you get my message about the songs?"

"Yup, and it's no problem. They're all standards." Tony pats her knee reassuringly. "It's all right babe, it's in the bag."

"Can I finish with _Piece of my heart_? I know it's usually Cliff, but..."

Tony grins. "For you sweetheart, we can finish on the Birdie Song if you want."

Gin is watching them. Molly tries to arrange her face into a completely neutral expression which can in no way be interpreted as flirting. Firstly, she is not flirting. Secondly, Gin's jealousy is nothing she wants anywhere near her at the moment.

"Good," Gin says, in response to nothing.

She also pats Molly's knee, other knee this time, with a thin hand. Molly recoils from all the touching, but is distracted by Gin's rings, rattling on her fingers like an old lady's, although Gin is only, what forty five? If that. Molly stares at the swollen knuckles and thinks, _cancer. Weight loss, terrible skin, poor moods because of pain, it's cancer, isn't it._ But she doesn't say anything.

They arrive at the Pinstripe and Tony parks round the back. Gin and Molly (basically Molly) lug the costumes in and along a murky passage to an equally murky dressing room. The lightbulb is barely worth the name.

"Typical, "says Gin, and starts hanging up dresses.

Gin and Tonic will be the only act. There will be a brief interval during which they will change outfits, plus Molly and Tony will do minor costume changes when the other one is doing lead vocals. It is all quite complicated as well as being last minute and Molly drops a bag, thinking about it.

A sequin covered dress spills out onto the dusty floor. "That's it," says Gin. "That's the one for your big number at the end. I reckon it will fit."

Molly holds it against herself, squinting. "I think it will... but I've got my gold dress, I was going to wear that." It is the one she wants Sherlock to see her in, so that he understands, so that he sees Billie Rae and what she means. It is not about seduction. Not exactly. It is about sharing something with him... the parts of her he has not yet seen.

"Wear this," Gin insists, and Molly does not have the energy for a fight. It is only a dress. If it doesn't fit she will put her foot down.

She almost hopes it does fit. It is a boat neck shift mini dress, neck to hem in sequins, in a deep rose colour, hard to see clearly under this grainy yellow bulb but it will dazzle under the stage lights. It has the weight, and the faint, impossible to remove scent of a garment from before Molly was born. is clearly authentic. "Wow. Where did you get this?"

"Have you got boots with you?" Gin says. "It's meant for boots."

"Yes." She has some black leather ones, block heel, correct for period but not as glamorous as Gin's own white patents. Gin does not offer to lend her them, but goes off to harangue the band, leaving Molly alone for the moment.

Molly checks her phone. Nothing from Sherlock. She will not ring him. Billie Rae is desperate to know if he (and his kisses) will be there tonight, but Molly has dignity. She texts Dee. _Still can't guess what happened? M x_

_What?_ comes back the reply.

_We kissed. M x_

_Wow_.

_I know. I'm seeing him tonight. M x_

No reply. Some IT crisis is no doubt dragging Dee away from the gossip.

They get up on stage in front of an excitable midweek crowd. Tony sings _Runaround Sue _and Molly makes the backing as punchy as she can with a female voice, belting out the _Hip, hip_s and scanning the crowd for Sherlock. But he is not there.

The set goes well, the costume changes are more or less OK. The rose dress does not fit and molly worries about ripping it if she forces it on. She wears her gold one, and Gin has to live with it. "Gorgeous," says Tony, and gives her a pout, full Cliff mode, and Gin laughs and smiles tolerantly at them both, the most relaxed Molly has seen her in weeks. Molly does a twirl in the gold dress, for the dressing room mirror, and thinks, _Pretty good. In this dress, I could absolutely be his pathologist. I could be anything he want_s.

Billie Rae roars with laughter and says, _In that dress? In that dress you will be out of that dress in five minutes my girl._

The final number, at her request, is Molly's favourite, _Piece of my heart._ She knows it perfectly, has been singing this song her entire life. The Irma Franklin ruby pin is in her hair, and everything is right except that Sherlock is not here. But she sings anyway, standing close to the mic, swaying a little. She offers everything, promising strength and love, and the crowd applaud wildly at the end and Tony salutes her from the keyboards and even Gin gives her a tight smile. Molly smiles at the audience, steps back, and the lights go down.

The Pinstripe has a scruffy outside terrace bar, and the audience immediately decamp there for alcohol and smokes, leaving the band to do their take-down and Molly to remove her agonising high heels and put her greying trainers on instead. She sits on the edge of the stage, flattening her make-up with a wet wipe, and refuses Tony's offer of a lift, and Gin's instruction that Molly will most certainly go with them, let them see her home. "I'm fine," she says repeatedly, using a little of her work voice, and eventually Gin gives up and they disappear out the back to Tony's van, and Molly is alone.

She checks her phone. One message, from Dee.

_Pleased for you._

Work must be crazy. Dee is usually the world's most garrulous texter. Molly cannot resist sending her a reply. _Buzz me when you're free and I will tell you everything that happened - at the Aquarium! M x_

She puts her phone away and sits for a moment, swinging her legs on the edge of the stage, her feet gradually reshaping inside the comfy trainers. Is it too clingy to text Sherlock again and ask him if he will be around later? She has distracted herself with singing, but now she really, really wants to see him.

And then she does. He is leaning against the wall in a dark corner at the far side of the room, watching her, wearing his usual dark suit and frown. And as she notices him, he straightens up and moves across the room, and she jumps up too, and they meet halfway. "Hi."

He nods, biting his top lip, eyes narrowed. He is wearing a different shirt - the purple one, last seen in a cleaner's bag in Molly's flat. He has been there, then.

"Were you watching?" she asks, gesturing at the stage.

"Yes. Never mind that now. That's not why I'm here." He takes her arm, guides her back to the stage. "Sit down."

His tone. The instantly recognisable tone. You never hear it at any other time. The bad news voice.

"What's wrong?" she asks, although she already knows. But who? Surely not John. Oh god. Mrs Hudson? She reaches for his hand and he lets her wrap her fingers around his, entwine, his own hand remaining passive and detached, and now she is truly scared. "Who is it?" she asks, a tremor in her voice.

His eyes flicker. "Karen Frobisher."

Molly is blank. Then remembers: the body which was moved from her morgue by the police.

Sherlock is focused on her. His eyes dart about as he takes in her face, hands, breathing. "You don't know the name." She shakes her head. He takes a breath and lets it out steadily. For a second his fingers grip hers, hard. "You do know her though. Your friend. Dee."

* * *

**Author's Note**:

_You sexy thing_ – Hot Chocolate


	16. Efficiency and convenience

_Oh, look what has happened with just one kiss_  
_ I never knew that I could be in love like this_  
_ It's crazy but it's true_  
_ I only want to be with you_

* * *

Molly does not speak. _ But I just texted her_, is in her head, which is meaningless. _Dee_. Sarcastic and funny and blasphemous and brilliant with vintage clothes. "I didn't know that was her name," Molly says.

Sherlock looks grim. "We're going through everyone she knows and it seems she's been leading somewhat of a double life." He hesitates. "I didn't see the body until tonight: it got moved. Something about her not being a British citizen. If I'd seen her earlier I would have - told you."

He is looking at the stage, at Molly in half make up, a gold sequin dress and grey trainers. "It's just a bit of fun," Molly says, following his gaze. "Stage names. Glamorous dresses. Singing. It's just an escape from everyday reality." She stops. Sherlock's face is a mask. He has already assimilated the entire scene and filed it. Molly knows that look: dismissal, following successful categorisation. (From his expression, this category, her life and Dee's, is marked _Inexplicable Need To Fantasize_.)

He paces up and down in front of the stage, gesturing with his phone in his hand. "The police think it's a mugging gone wrong. It's not. It's connected to our unidentified girl - remember?"

She tries to think. "In the lake."

"Yes. The method –" He stops. "Different method. The style was the same," he says.

Is this tact, from him? She does not want it. "What?" she says, but he sets his mouth and will not answer. She has already pictured everything, anyway, inside and out. One of the downsides of the job: you can no longer think of a peaceful face smiling in a white satin-lined coffin. You see the metal dissection table, the channels down its sides, the drainage hole.

_Dee_. It is unreal. "Does her family know?" she asks. "She's got a mum and dad, a sister -"

"Lestrade had that pleasure."

The empty room sounds flat. Shock has eaten the echoes. Molly asks, "When?"

"They found her last night. It had happened very soon before that." His eyes are searching everywhere, although not in Molly's direction.

Now she won't be able to tell Dee what happened with Sherlock - although here and now, with his work face firmly on display, it all seems impossible anyway, like something dreamed.

Then her brain begins to operate. Timings. "Sherlock. It can't be her. I've had texts from Dee today. Look."

She gets out her phone. Bites her lip against embarrassment and shows him the text conversation about the Aquarium. "Sorry," she says, but he is checking the times of the texts, and Dee's number.

"We found her phone," he says, shaking his head. "Hidden in an anti theft compartment in her handbag. The murderer must have missed it." He snaps his fingers. "Of course. Lots of people have several phones."

Molly asks, "What did it look like?"

"Blackberry. Small, black..." He shows the size with his fingers.

Molly shakes her head. "That's her work phone. Dee's phone is big, that new HTC, with a diamante cover." Extravagance in dresses and phones.

Sherlock blinks. Takes out his own phone and dials with one touch. Speaks while keeping eye contact with Molly. "Lestrade. Yes. There's another phone. And it's active. Molly's received texts from it today, most recently... Eight thirty four pm."

He listens, confirms Dee's number, pockets Molly's phone. "Ok."

The call ends. Sherlock says, "Scotland Yard will find that phone. Yours is needed too. Evidence. Someone's coming to collect it. That phone might lead us straight to the murderer."

He looks a little disappointed. Robbed of his chance to solve the puzzle. Then he shakes himself and returns to pacing up and down.

"She did sound odd," Molly says.

"You had a conversation with your friend's killer," he remarks vaguely. His eyes focus on her shocked misery and he adds, "Or just the person who found the abandoned phone."

She gulps, blurts out, "Who would send messages to a stranger on a phone they found? Who would pretend to be someone else?" (Billie Rae. And Dee, or Karen.)

His mouth quirks but the humour is too dark to reach his eyes. "You made your news sound very exciting."

She cannot even smile.

A police detective arrives and takes Molly's phone. Dee's diamante phone has been found, miles off in a skip. "London has high cellular granularity," Sherlock explains. "In some areas a single cell can be only a couple of metres across."

Molly couldn't care less.

The detective goes off. The newly discovered phone, and Molly's, will be tested in some forensic way she would normally find interesting. But between her performance tonight and the news about Dee, Molly is ready to drop.

She stands. "I'll have to tell Gin and Tony," she says. She reaches for her phone and then remembers she has just donated it to the police. She closes her eyes for a moment. Her brain is not functioning. She does not need to tell Gin now. It makes no sense really, Dee hasn't even done vocals for them lately, and avoids Gin like the plague at the Beehive. But Molly wants to act, to contribute, and she cannot think what else to do.

"No," says Sherlock. He puts his hand on her arm, stopping her thoughts. "You should go home."

He is right. She is good for nothing. "Ok." A cab, she thinks. She has change in her purse. Right. _Dee_. She does not ask if he will come with her, if he will stay, if he will not leave her on her own tonight. She knows he can't. He has a case. "I know you're busy," she says.

"-Don't second guess me," he says shortly. "I'll take you home."

"The case -"

"Is straightforward enough now they have that phone. Even the police might solve it. I am not immediately needed." He picks up her bag of stage clothes. "Come on."

In three minutes they are in a cab with the bag containing all Molly's outfits from the gig, Molly wrapped in her parka and Sherlock's coat flowing out around him on the seat like the steps down from a throne. After the cab rounds the first corner, he slides his hand across the soft wool folds and wraps his fingers around Molly's. She holds his hand tightly, thinking of Dee.

The cab pulls up. Sherlock springs out and talks to the driver, then helps Molly to the kerb. The taxi has pulled away before she realises that they are not in Dean Street. Sherlock has her hand again, tugging her up the steps of 221B.

They climb the stairs, one flight forward, one flight back, and as they reach the landing which is notionally Sherlock's actual front door, she realises she has never been here except at Christmas. She was expecting to see John's tangle of fairy lights. But there is only a hat stand, holding a construction helmet and a coat marked Police.

In the cluttered living room, Sherlock drops her bag on the floor between two eclectic piles of objects - books, a magnifying glass, a bottle of grit, a china cup holding what seems to be ash - and lifts her parka from her shoulders. He lets that fall onto a chair, saying, "Stay here tonight." In his own home, he moves with ease and certainty.

"Ok." She will not be alone. And despite his lack of reaction to Billie Rae, or any reference to the events by the shark tank, Sherlock is being nice. He is looking after her, and she is touched.

She glances at the settee. It looks firm enough.

"Don't be ridiculous, "says Sherlock. "In my room."

"I can't kick you out of your room," she protests, and then sees his patient expression. "Oh."

"It's fine. Come on. You need to rest." He shrugs off his own coat and it slithers onto the settee like an animal curling up in its own corner. "I've got an old ... thing you can wear."

She follows him through the kitchen. There is a microscope and a rack of test tubes, empty, on the table. One mug on the draining board. Signs of the life of a single detective.

His room is sparse and clean. She can see a wardrobe, a weird cupboard-suitcase thing with knick knacks on, diagrams on the walls. And a huge mahogany sleigh bed.

Sherlock crosses to the wardrobe, plucks out a dark red slinky item which reveals itself, in Molly's hands, as a nightgown. Sherlock shrugs. "Belonged to an old flatmate. She left it here."

_What, in your bedroom?_ Molly thinks, but this is not the moment. "Thanks."

His bed is enormous. At least they won't spend all night kicking each other.

"Take this dressing gown too," he says, picking a brown checked cotton one off the back of his door. "I'll get changed..." He wafts away through a frosted glass door which turns out to be another entrance to the bathroom. Very civilised.

Molly undresses, stops at knickers. The red nightgown more deserves the title of negligee, and she can't go naked. She is relieved he gave her the dressing gown as well.

She wraps herself in it, the cotton starchy against her skin. She can smell Sherlock on it, peppery cologne and soap and a faint hint of tobacco leaf; he must carry a secret packet of cigarettes round in the pocket.

He appears, in a red dressing gown, navy pyjama bottoms, bare feet. His naked chest is carelessly revealed through the open neck of the gown. "Which side?" he says briskly.

She plays a game of double bluff with herself as he waits, and then chooses the left side. She climbs into - onto - the bed. It is like being on a platform, a stage. But her Billie Rae pin is on the bedside table. She lies flat, feeling very exposed.

He climbs in too and covers them up with the white duvet.

She takes breaths. Tries to think of nothing. Not of murder, death -

"You're safe," he tells her.

From what? Dee's killer? Molly's breath hitches and she puts her hands over her mouth. "Sorry-"

He slides off the bed, disappears into the bathroom again and returns, this time with a glass of water. More swirling of gown and glimpses of his pale torso. "Drink," he says, handing it to her.

She sips, calming her breathing, and tries to think of something pleasant. Or just distracting. Sherlock. The Aquarium. His bed. The glass goes onto the bedside table next to the pin, and she settles down again. "Thanks."

They lie for a few moments, looking at the ceiling. Then he reaches across her and switches off the bedside table light.

"Sleep." His voice in the dark. A command, like all his commands, containing expectation of immediate compliance.

She takes a few breaths. This is surreal. She is in bed with him. Would this have happened if he had arrived at the bar with any other type of news? Would it have happened if she had just opened the door of her flat to him tonight, or any night, and then instead of handing him his duvet, led him wordlessly to her bedroom?

He is simply lying flat beside her. How does he sleep? _Does_ he sleep, when he is in her flat? He is always awake when she gets up.

"You're thinking. Try not to. It won't help you sleep. Believe me, I know." His voice, wry.

"It's hard not to," she says.

He shifts in the bed. "Come here then." Another instruction, but this one is accompanied by his arms, hauling her over to his side of the bed, and onto him so that she is sprawled half on top of him, her left leg between his, her face in his shoulder, her left arm flung across his bare chest and her right squashed underneath her. "Sleep," he murmurs, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he has just ramped up five levels of intimacy in one step, or to any idea of permission.

He drapes his arms over her back, shuffles a bit, getting comfortable, and then sighs. "Goodnight," he says, his chin against her forehead.

"Night," she replies automatically. He is so bony that it is hard to believe he could be comfortable to lie on, but his shoulder has a good amount of muscle over it and her own natural padding means she is resting quite cosily against his ribs and hip. _Snuggling_, she thinks. _Exactly what I wanted, in other words. Maybe all I ever had to do was ask._

She has no idea.

He is warm. Heat radiates from him, warming her chest, her belly. She is surrounded by his scent, and masculine possessiveness. For a while he successfully made her forget he is a man, but now she has remembered. There are only flimsy layers of fabric between them. Her thigh rests between his, but the reverse is also true. Is she crushing him with her leg? He would have said, would have moved. _Don't think about it._ As weird as this is, he is just being a friend. A friend who, having kissed her once, and not tonight, has assumed that it is ok to get into bed with her mostly naked and clasp their bodies together as if they know each other very, very well.

He can do that, can simply adjust people to his will.

Suddenly the negligee in his bedroom seems highly plausible. Sex with a flatmate would surely fulfil a Sherlock notion of efficiency and convenience. The awkwardness she has seen in her flat has vanished, here in his territory. And if Baker Street makes all the difference, then he could easily have had a string of lovers here, just as eager as she to be the one who brought him comfort and sensuality... It would be like him, she thinks, to falsify vulnerability to attract a mate, in a manipulative reversal of animal courtship. His power and intellect are more off-putting than attractive. A hint of sensitivity, on the other hand, coupled with his knowing good looks, and who could resist?

"You're still thinking. I can feel it." He taps her shoulders twice with all his fingertips.

"About you," she says, on a whim. She expects him to freeze, but he does not react at all. Perhaps it seems only natural to him. Or maybe he has less egotistical curiosity than she imagines.

"Sleep," he repeats. To reinforce his words, his hands move, stroking her back rhythmically, from nape of neck to just above her coccyx. Same complete lack of self consciousness, same assumption of her wishes. Extreme arrogance, in other words. Very Sherlock. It's a good thing she is not easily offended.

The stroking is very pleasant. He has strong hands, and his fingers are exerting a little calculated pressure through the cotton and satin. "That's nice," she mumbles into his shoulder, and _now_, not when she first lay half-naked on him, not when her thigh slipped between his and her breasts lolled against his ribs, no, only now, when she tells him his touch gives her pleasure, does she feel his heartbeat pick up. His jaw creaks against her forehead - he is breathing through his mouth.

She wriggles a little, getting closer, and sighs. "You could do that all night," she tells him. Then a thought strikes her, about his superhuman abilities and unpredictable sense of nurturing. "But don't."

She lifts her left hand, strokes his jaw. Stubble. Most unlike him. Weirdly it makes him seem younger. "You sleep," she says. She closes her eyes and feels the strong, steady heartbeat under her cheek gradually slow, until it is a long sequence in her mind, a pattern of certainty and strength, taking her away to dreams of warmth, and safety, and peace.

* * *

**Author's Note: **There is now a playlist for this fic - all the songs, of course - on the tube of you, under my username. And yes, this is what I listen to when writing this! And I can recommend _The Sapphires_ as a film to get you in the vintage mood too. Soul music, sequins, civil rights issues and the marvellous Chris O'Dowd, what's not to like? -Sef

_I only want to be with you_ – Dusty Springfield


	17. Luminous power

_Step one - you find a girl you love_

_Step two - she falls in love with you_

_Step three -_

* * *

Half past five. Morning but barely worth the name. June sunshine, waking him up. Well. Not only that.

His nose is in Molly's hair and his chest is against her warm back. There is also his rather obvious arousal. The consequence of masculinity. She is still asleep and he is not about to move. She is soft and warm and his hand is curled over her hip as if it has been there all night, and if he props himself on one elbow he can see her face, pale skin, freckles, he notices, very faint on her nose, her dark eyelashes resting on her cheeks, and the negligee falling away over her breasts.

Distraction worked last night. She will still wake up and think about her friend, though. A pity, because this would be so pleasant otherwise: closeness and warmth and probably more kissing because he cannot lie here, resisting, forever. Is she a passionate redhead after all? He could stand to find out. Could stand a great deal more of this, in fact. Up to a point. Or maybe beyond it.

He despairs of his own ambiguity. But this is not about sex, although sex obviously comes into the equation. (When does it not? Contacts with other people always reference sex, even if it is to exclude it. And contact with Molly has never excluded it.) She wants him, has always wanted him, and he has always wanted her too, although he has only recently admitted it. Years of separation and deliberate obfuscation have not diminished her luminous power.

But his want is about something older and more difficult than mere personal gratification. It is about meeting the shattered parts of him again, seeing what shape they would make now if he could put them back together. It touches old wounds but also old contentment. Life was simple at one point. Not easy, but the premise of life was straightforward. Know, learn, grow, succeed. And then it all sheared away under a jagged blade.

He has known fear, since then. Fear of what he could become. Fear that it was already too late. And with fear came the need to obliterate – himself, at first, and then, anything which was not related to something controllable, that is to say, related to work.

The work saved his life.

John saved his sanity.

And Molly... He suspects that Molly has saved, has kept, some psychological part of him, a part which got halted. Something was beginning, and then it got stopped, his own fault, and then he got caught by love, trapped and punished by love, and everything which came before got shattered and blown away and the only parts left are the ones Molly has kept all this time.

He snorts. A foolish idea, based on nothing, based on his need, not based on facts, evidence.

"Morning."

Her sleepy voice makes him jump. "Morning." A quick assessment: his left arm under her neck, his right hand, now, splayed over her stomach - it has crept there as he was thinking - and his physical response still quite definite. What to do?

She turns her head, her hair scratching against the cotton pillow, and looks at him. Her eyelids are lowered, her eyes darkened, her throat arched backwards as she turns towards him: classic signals of sexual readiness.

His heart beats hard, once, and then quickly. She is ready. Is she? For what exactly though? One way to find out, not the only way, and not the only thing to do, plenty of other options, like giving her a quick peck on the cheek and rolling away, like asking her if she wants a cup of tea...

"Are you getting up?" she asks, her eyes appealing.

He gazes at her. Her lips are pink, and mere inches from his own. He hesitates.

"It's still early," she murmurs. She shuffles so that she is lying on her back and his hand is now on her belly, and inside the dressing gown. Satin is slippery under his fingers. "We should get more sleep..."

"Mmn." He breathes in lavender soap, sweat and rich feminine musk. His foot winds over hers of its own accord. She smiles her delight and he sees relief, too, in her eyes. She lifts her chin a little higher still, an enticement, so obvious, and it is working, it absolutely is working -

He kisses her lips, her hands go round his neck and she pulls him down, kisses him back, holding his mouth to hers, murmuring into the kiss. He shifts to lean over her, their legs twining. She presses his body against her, and sighs as he puts his mouth to her throat.

"I never thought-" she says. Laughs a little, her hands sneaking inside his dressing gown, discovering bare skin, exploring his stomach muscles with small squeezes of appreciation. Other aspects are only brushed by her wrist but she has clearly noticed because she says, "You're keen -" and then gasps as he draws a little tender trapezoid flesh into his mouth.

"Well." There is no denying. "Yes. Rather," he adds, and sees lights go on in her eyes. Perspiration breaks from every pore as he unties his dressing gown with his free hand, Molly watching him with smoky eyes, and pulls it aside.

She twitches an eyebrow at him, and he shrugs off the dressing gown altogether. "You're beautiful," she says. He buries his face in her neck, and she smooths her palms all over his torso, saying, "Don't be embarrassed. It's true." She moves her hand to undo the brown dressing gown she is wrapped in, but he gets there first.

"Let me-"

"Ok –"

It is a little unconventional to untie a knot with your teeth, but he is not hearing any objections. And when he looks up, his cheek against her bare stomach, she is laughing.

* * *

Are they actually going to do this? He is raging hot, his hair hanging over his eyes in damp curls, his skin moist. He kisses her neck, her collarbone, the top of her breasts above the nightgown. She has her hands on his waist, tracing hard muscle down to his navel and is kissing every part of him which comes near.

She woke up in his arms and that was good. He held her all night, providing comfort in a way she had never thought him capable of, and then as she lay remembering Dee and trying, for the moment, not to think about it, he nuzzled the back of her neck and his hand trailed down onto her stomach, relishing her skin, and she knew, at last, that all his coldness and reserve was just an act and that he could be sensual, caring, even affectionate. She kept her eyes closed and lay bathed in this final proof, and then he put his hands on her and ground his hips against her bottom in a most unsubtle way, and she forgot about affection and thought, _You, your hands, your mouth, yes, and your eyes on me the whole time, right here right now._ Yeah, so all they have done until now is kiss, so what? She never imagined Sherlock progressing any part of his life in neat stages. And so she opened her eyes and turned to him and he kissed her and now here they are, undressing each other and no question of where this is leading.

There is a thread of worry tying together many other thoughts, principally, is this a one-off thing, a convenience thing, a thing they can do but which will then be ignored? But even if it is, will she stop, call a halt, try to have some kind of discussion about it? Yeah, right. Because the discussions you have with a man when sex is on the table, are a true reflection of his thoughts and feelings. No. Bollocks to it. She is not in the mood to analyse, anyway.

He pauses now, watching her through his eyelashes as she writhes under his kisses. She pulls him up to eye level and he says, "Are you all right?" and seems genuinely wary, so she says, "Don't stop," and he grins in relief, and keeps eye contact, bold and challenging, as he slides the strap of the negligee off her left shoulder. She allows him, her right hand on the waistband of his pyjamas.

He is breathing through his mouth. He kisses all around her left breast, and then takes her into his mouth and she clutches him as his tongue rolls and caresses. _So you do do tongues. _ His other hand is outside the nightgown, his palm rubbing circles over her other breast, through the silk.

"I want to - make love to you." His voice is catching in his throat.

"That sounds ...extremely good." She cannot think how it sounds. She is sliding his pyjamas away.

"I mean now."

"Ok." His eyes are a deeper blue than she has ever seen them. She holds his head in her hands and kisses him softly, silently, the way he kissed her. "Yes."

Words are mostly gone as they kiss and caress and slither over each other, grasping at the rumpled bed like a life raft. The bed is warm and full of him and her knickers go over the side. After a while she says, "Condom," and he stretches out to the bedside table and scrabbles in a drawer. She pretends not to see him check the date on the box. What can she say? The ones in her handbag are prehistoric.

He leans back on the pillow, holding the foil packet, and looks at her.

Now he does seem nervous, but she says, "You open that," and shimmies down the bed and kisses the line of hair which runs to his navel and then keeps going, and he lies flat, breathing in ragged gasps, fumbling with the packet as she strokes and kisses, and then the required protection is in place and she is a little nervous too, but she wriggles back to his eye level. There follows some silent negotiation which finishes with him kissing her mouth very gently and leaning over her, his arm under her neck and his mouth tantalisingly close to hers. He positions himself correctly, and then she is dragging him into her and they both gasp at the intensity, a kind of amazement, and she kisses his neck over and over and tries to think, think anything, but only _You, you, here with me_ is in her head. He has his eyes closed but his free hand is caressing her cheek and throat, her breasts, and his mouth keeps returning to the tender flesh beneath her left ear.

It is good but a little more is needed... She puts her hand down to where they are joined. His eyes open in surprise at her fingers on him, on her, and she looks straight at him, watching his helpless reaction, and then he kisses her, a new urgency, his mouth desperate, his tongue deep into her, his hands gripping her shoulders hard and she thinks _Yes, be in me everywhere_ and feels him shudder. He cries out into her mouth, and she holds him and herself and feels the end coming and he pulls away from the kiss but she grabs the back of his neck with her free hand and pulls him close and wraps her legs round him and holds him. It lasts and lasts and she falls away from his kiss saying "Oh god, oh I love you, oh god," and then he flops on top of her and they lie gasping and clinging to each other in trembling oblivion.

* * *

He snaps to attention and leans up on one elbow, eyes searching her face, fingers tracking across her shoulders. "Did I hurt you?" He is touching specific locations on her neck, her shoulders. She remembers his mouth, his fingernails. Presumably these have left a mark.

"No," she says. "Passion," she tells him, drawing him back down to rest with his head on her breast. "You're so passionate, it's wonderful."

"It got a bit... intense."

"Oh yes. Perfect."

His eyes are wide. "Really?" Suspicion.

She laughs. "Yes! And, when you kissed me - " he flushes, eyes sliding away - "I liked that."

He stares. Puts his mouth to hers straightaway, hard press, then lips parting. She lets him lead, gentle tongue, then reflects his exploration, eyes closing, and the kiss deepens.

Eventually he pulls away, darts a look at her, and she runs her hands through his hair and doesn't say all the things she would if it was not him. _It's all right. You're good at this, crazily good. I love what you do._

You cannot say those things to him, because he will not be patronized. Reassurance would be insulting.

And yet. He seems to...need. She has never seen him vulnerable like this.

"Your kisses are amazing," she says. She kisses his jaw in illustration. "Especially the ones... the just lips ones."

His face goes into her shoulder. "Yours too," he says, and then rolls her over on top of him before she can react.

"Sherlock," she says. "I don't want - just a fling. I want more of this."

"All right," he says. He lifts one eyebrow. He is counting her ribs with his right hand, examining her hip bone with his left, his fingers firm and precise.

She sighs. Has to be clear, with him. "I mean I want... to be with you. Like a..." small voice, this is excruciating but it must be done... "girlfriend."

He is still.

"Stop imagining the worst," she says, rolling her eyes and touching his temple as she sprawls on top of him. "I'm not going to start by insisting we send joint Christmas cards."

He laughs.

"I just don't want - Sherlock?" as the topological survey begins again.

"What?"

"You to treat me like dirt." She holds his gaze.

"Right," he says. He does not say, _I wouldn't. _They both know he would if he wanted to.

"If you don't want to do it any more, just tell me," she says. "All right?"

He runs a hand through his hair. His eyes flicker. There is a debate going on behind them, but she has not given him a lot of room for negotiation. On purpose. After five heartbeats he says, "Yes. All right." He frowns. "Are you like this with all your - lovers?"

"Yes," she admits. "I don't like to be disappointed. I'd rather just know." Interestingly unpredictable is one thing. Cheating somewhere it will definitely be witnessed, such as in her own bedroom, is quite another. She knows.

They kiss, then, and she replays him saying _lover_ and thinks she could listen to that word in his voice, all day, and he seems so relaxed that she tells him, and he laughs, and says _lover, lover _in an exaggerated tone, and throws in a few pathology terms while he's at it, and things become silly, and she pins him down to get him to stop and he just smirks and says, "If you like," and time has stopped and anything outside this room, this bed, anything beyond his eyes and his hands and his skin has become irrelevant, and they cling to each other and say many ridiculous things that lead to laughter, then outrage, then tussling, then love.

* * *

**Author's note: **I'd love to know what you think of this chapter, especially the sex! let me know what you think works and didn't work and what could be better. Criticism is good. Thank you! -Sef

_Three steps to heaven - Eddie Cochran_


	18. Deadly habits

_Remember when_

_You held me tight_

_And you kissed me all through the night?_

_Think of all that we've been through_

_And breaking up is hard to do_

* * *

The front door of 221B slams. Sherlock, draped in his brown checked dressing gown, peeks out of the front window and sees Molly trudging towards the Euston Road with her holdall, checking over her shoulder for a cab. It is still early. She has to get to work. Conscientious. She likes her job.

He likes his job too. _Like_ is not really the right word: _need_ would be closer. His work is part of him, is what defines him, makes him the man he is. And in a few moments he will get back to it. He was not being entirely truthful with Molly when he said the police would solve the case. They have found the phone, sure, but its various locations will still need to be analysed and it is unlikely to tell them anything beyond where the killer went the day after Dee's murder. His own deductive powers will still be required.

But first he will have a hydrating cup of tea and assimilate this morning's learning. All in all, most pleasant. Better than that. Almost – miraculous. Not just his body, although servicing your transport is always a good plan. He smirks, pouring water into his cup. No: it is his mind which has received the greatest benefit. It feels looser, freer, less coiled and ready to bite. Molly's touch, her melodic voice, her eyes full of acceptance and, yes, love, all these things have soothed him at a deep level, reconnected him with his past, begun a process of ... restoration.

He brings the tea through to his room, puts it on the side and flops back into bed. The linen smells of Molly, and sex. Almost tempting never to change it. (Not quite. It will be in the laundry in about three minutes' time.) If he wishes to re-experience it, he will have to ... do as Molly asked and be a boyfriend, something he has not been in a very long time. And that did not end well. Still. He did not exactly promise. There are degrees of relationships. She knows he will not expend time and energy in pointless socialising. He does not wish to see her friends, her family. He wishes to see her. And John.

He picks his phone off the bedside table and messages John. _May have resolved the overpopulated marine life issue. SH._

He sips tea. A reply comes back. _Have you eaten all the fish? J._

_Just one. SH._

_Are you being euphemistic? J._

_Obviously_. _SH_. He pauses. He wants to say something else, express something, but it seems rather crass. He and John do not discuss their love lives, or rather, they do not discuss Sherlock's, because he does not have one. John's previously disastrous record has occasionally come under scrutiny.

Even as he decides not to add to his message, another from John arrives. _A bit of euphemism does you good. Give her a kiss from me. J._

He chuckles. Finishes the tea, falls back against the pillows.

His cheek detects something hard. He frowns. Sits.

A sequin. From Molly's dress. But it is not gold. It is pink. In the raw morning light, it shows clearly as a very specific shade of raspberry pink.

His brain is momentarily frozen as he blinks at the sequin. Then it begins racing, and his heart too.

He picks up the tiny disc, between fingernails - preserving evidence. It is made of acetate.

The unidentified girl. The supposedly unusual acetate sequin. He knows already that when he compares this one to the one in the lab, they will be identical.

Why does Molly have that dress?

She has a wardrobe full of antique dresses. Part of her secret hobby – singing in costume. It could be coincidence. But those sequins were for a special dress. Molly said so herself.

She did not recognize the sequin in the lab. She wouldn't have worn it last night if she knew it was that dress. Why would she? Challenging him? (She can be challenging. Fearless and immovable.)

She has been on stage in the dress. Therefore the dress was clean. After the murder it would have been blood soaked. It has been cleaned. Can this type of garment be truly cleaned? Perhaps, by a specialist (traceable) cleaner who knows how to handle the delicate sequins... but traces of the victim's blood may remain.

That would only tie the dress to the victim. Traces on this sequin would tie Molly to that same dress.

He rings Lestrade.

"Sherlock." Lestrade's jovial voice.

"The phone you found last night. Did you trace its movements." His tone is flat, has lost its energy. Ten minutes ago he would have assigned the blame for that to physical exhaustion. Now he knows it is stress.

"Yes. About that, Sherlock. You were there at the Pinstripe Bar. Why were you there?"

Not this again. Can he really be under suspicion? "I went to find Molly. Tell her about her friend."

"Why was _she_ there?" Lestrade's voice has gone cold. He is being official.

"She was performing," Sherlock says.

Lestrade grunts. "Well, that will have to be checked. Because the phone, the one she says texted her back, was in that club all evening."

"When did it get there? How? Where from?" He needs to see the locations log right now.

"It was off, the night of the murder. Then it came on, yesterday evening. In the Pinstripe Bar."

A jolt goes through him, a nauseating clench in his stomach. He ignores it. Molly is connected to the dress of the unidentified girl. That is a fact. The dead girl's phone was in the club last night and so was Molly. That is also a fact. Without further evidence, everything else is speculation.

The rest of the pink dress was presumably in that bag she has just carried away. Where will she go with it? Home. He has a key: problem solved.

There are other possibilities here. Some other performer, in the pink dress, might have brushed against Molly, lost a sequin. He must not jump to conclusions. He has spent years training himself to avoid such deadly habits.

Yet Molly knew the latest dead girl, and now she has a sequin from the other dead girl, and this is becoming uncomfortable.

"Lestrade. I might have a lead on the dress worn by the unidentified murder victim. The one in the lake. The two murders are connected." His voice sounds strange. He clears his throat.

"Right. What?" Lestrade is brisk and impatient.

"I'm going to investigate now. I'll call you when I know more."

"Don't cut me out, Sherlock. Remember I'm doing you a favour letting you in on these cases." A threat. As if Lestrade could stop him.

He does not have the strength to argue. "I'll update you later," he says, and rings off.

It is not impossible for Molly to have been involved in murder. Implausible in the extreme, but he does not operate off probabilities, only what is not impossible. Molly's history includes a liaison (surely not sexual?) with a man who was criminally insane. There is a kind of precedent. But he does not speculate on what is possible. He works on eliminating everything else until only the truth remains.

For the moment Molly must be filed under Involved, and dealt with as such. And because he has become involved with her, that unpleasant category must now also include him.

He goes and stands under the shower. His hair sticks to his neck, his face. He does not move even though it is in his eyes. Water roars and splashes around him but cannot block his reverberating thoughts. He shuts his eyes and stands for a long time until he realises that while this debilitating suspicion exists he will never feel clean again.

* * *

**Author's note:**

_Breaking up is hard to do _- Neil Sedaka


	19. Micro-manager supreme

_What you want, baby, I got it_

_What you need? _

_You know I got it_

_All I'm askin' is for a little respect when you get home_

_Hey baby, when you get home, mister_

* * *

Molly checks her phone. Nothing from Sherlock. He has not appeared in the lab today either. She is a little torn. She needs to go and tell Phil, and the others, at the Beehive, about Dee. But she does not want to miss a chance to see Sherlock either.

She steels herself. _Just do what you were going to do anyway. It is what he would expect. He would not want you changing your plans in order to involve him._

She texts Phil. _I'll be in tonight. M x_

_GR8! Doing anything special? Look forward to it. P x_

She bites her lip. She will be doing a special song, but not in the way Phil hopes. _Had some bad news. Need to sing. See you later. M x_

The reply is immediate and warm. _Really sorry to hear. Come and have a hug. P x x_

He is such a nice bloke. And there is even a chance, with Phil, that a consolatory hug would remain just that. Unlike some other people she can think of.

She smiles at the tremor this memory sends through her. Weak at the knees? Sherlock makes her go weak at the ankles, weak at the lungs.

The dress tonight is black, a plain knee-length shift. Sheen, no sparkle. A black bow in her hair - reference to Dee. That's it. She does not truly feel in the mood, but it has been such a strange couple of days that she knows she has to sing.

She arrives early, for the Beehive, and finds Phil alone behind the bar. The room is deserted. Just as well.

Phil plucks a glass of the shelf between two fingers, pivots it and pours in chilled Pinot. "I heard," he says immediately. "About Dee."

Molly is relieved. She has been dreading breaking the new. "It's horrible," she says, and Phil comes out from behind the bar and puts his arms round her. "How did you hear?"

"Tony told me." Phil jerks his head towards the Gents. "He's in there now washing his face. He's pretty shocked. Seems like him and Dee were more than just good friends."

Tony and Dee? No. Dee would have said. Molly would have known. "But – what about Gin?" is all she can come up with.

Phil shrugs. "No idea. But the state he's in, I'm not asking."

Tony emerges from the door marked Toilets and comes towards the bar. "Hi Billie Rae," he says to Molly. He reaches for a half-drunk pint on the bar and necks the rest of it. Gestures at Phil for another.

Phil lets go of Molly and goes behind the bar, eyeing Tony.

"Are you ok?" Molly asks Tony.

"Yeah." Tony sniffs. "No. She was so great!" It comes out with a squeak. He rubs his hands over his face.

"I never knew you were friends," Molly says, as tactfully as she can.

"Yeah," Tony says again. "She spent ages a while back, helping out with the costumes. We were - all - pretty close."

Molly makes a noise of interest and acceptance, to avoid having to comment. Dee and Gin? No. Dee and Tony seems more likely and that is still a totally leftfield idea.

Tony carries on, "Dee spent every night for a week sewing sparkles onto one of Gin's dresses. It was wrecked when Gin got it. She had to take off all the bits and bobs. Dee did an ace restoration job on the dress, then sewed all the beads back on." Tony grasps the fresh pint Phil has pulled. "One by one," he says, and his voice cracks.

"Take it easy," says Phil. He glances anxiously at Molly, then asks Tony, "Are you singing tonight?"

Tony nods. "Just me. Gin's got a –" He stops.

Molly runs her gaze over him. His hair is falling out of its quiff. His tie is knotted wrong. His hands are trembling. And he is downing pints like it is time at the bar instead of half seven in the evening. "Appointment," Molly guesses. Tony nods. "Doctor's appointment?" Molly suggests.

"Hospital," says Tony. His eyes dart around. Reluctant. He is not supposed to say anything.

"Is it cancer?" Molly asks, seeing this.

"Yes." Neutral tone. Practised at thinking about it, the thing no one wants to have to think about.

"I'm sorry," she says softly.

Tony shrugs. "What can you do?"

Molly does not have an answer for that. "Let's go and sit down," she says.

They find a table and sit. Phil turns the background music up a bit and Molly sips wine as punters arrive. Tony keeps glancing at Molly and it is uncomfortable. "What?" she whispers as one of the regulars gets up on stage to start the evening's karaoke.

He shakes his head. After a while he says, "What are you singing tonight?"

"I can't decide. I want to do one of Dee's but it seems ... very final." He nods. "I might just... dedicate one of my usual ones to her."

"Sing with me," Tony says. "Make it easier for both of us."

Molly considers. Gin is not there, to chaperone. But Tony is right, a duet might be easier. "What song?"

"What about _Don't go breaking my heart?"_

Molly is doubtful. "It's a bit ... upbeat."  
"Dee was very upbeat," Tony says.

Molly narrows her eyes at him. "Tony. Were you having an affair with Dee?" It is a blunt question but tonight Molly does not feel delicate. If Tony was cheating on Gin, well... she supposes she feels a certain sympathy for Gin, as intense and angry as she is. Relationships require trust. Tony is young and good-looking. Gin has to trust him not to take advantage of that. And if she can't, then, well, her habitual fury becomes understandable.

Tony swallows. "Look. It wasn't how you're thinking."

Billie Rae rears up for the first time in two days, and her voice sounds a lot like Dee's. _Oh really? Please tell me what I think, for I am but a weak and feeble woman. You drongo._ "What do you mean? Molly asks. She takes a sip of Pinot and fixes Tony with her stare.

"Gin knew about us. It was Gin's idea." He lifts his chin. Defiance.

"What?" _Yeah, right_, says Billie Rae. _Cos that would make it all ok._ Molly takes a breath. "Are you saying... you had some kind of open marriage?"

It is an archaic notion. People who don't want monogamy don't get married. -Do they?

For some reason Molly sees Sherlock in her mind, single all these years. Not getting involved. (That negligee. Abandoned.)

"It's not that," Tony says. "It's... the cancer. One day it's going to get her. Finish her off." He stops as if this idea is too much to express. "She ... loves me. So much. She doesn't want me to be alone."

Molly thinks of Dee. Still cannot picture it. But Tony is young and fit. Dee liked fit blokes and was not overly troubled by a desire for commitment. And who is Molly to hold opinions on lovability? Her own lover is one of the world's most difficult men.

Molly has to know, now. "Gin set you up with Dee? As a ... future replacement?" This is a cold and horrifying idea. Yet at some level it is believable.

Tony nods. "I know it sounds mad. But it made her feel better, to know who I'd be with once she's gone."

Molly nods. Control. Gin is all about the control. She is micro-manager supreme.

"I really liked Dee," Tony says then. "She was so funny. Didn't take life too seriously. Let me do what I liked. She was great."

Molly nods. Pats his hand and he grips it desperately, sniffling. "We can do a duet if you like," she says. Tony nods, kisses her hand, holding it in both his fists. Molly tries to slip her hand away but he is holding her too tightly.

Phil materialises with more drinks for them. He frowns at the hand-holding. "Oi," he says, with mock joviality, " steady on, this lady's taken."

He puts his hand on Molly's shoulder and gives her a melting look. "Right, Molly? -Billie Rae."

Tony raises his eyebrows. "Scuse me?"

"Back off, pal," says Phil. " Billie Rae has had a tough day, don't make it worse, eh?"

"You back off," says Tony. "We're having a private conversation here, all right?" There is an edge to his voice which Molly has never heard before. A hysterical note. _Fear_, she thinks, and then is not sure if that means his, or her own.

Molly does not need Billie Rae to make the assessment of her situation. _Shit_. The only way this could be more awkward would be if Sherlock walked in. Bizarrely that is exactly what she is hoping for.

But he does not appear, and so Molly says, "Let's do that song," and extricates her hand from Tony's, and gives Phil a small smile, and hopes that Sherlock turns up, here, or in her flat, or anywhere, because Billie Rae's  
life has just become far too complicated and Molly prefers her own real life, the one with Sherlock in it.

But he does not appear, and she does the song alone (with Tony gripping her hand and gazing seriously at her the whole time) and gets a cab home alone (after Phil hailed it for her and kissed her cheek goodnight) and when she checks her phone again at her front door at midnight, and again in bed, and again in the morning, there is no message, no missed call from Sherlock, nothing.

* * *

**Author's note:**

_Respect_ – Aretha Franklin


	20. Dirt

_Heard it through the grapevine_  
_Not much longer would you be mine_  
_Oh I heard it through the grapevine_  
_Oh I'm just about to lose my mind_  
_Honey, honey yeah_

* * *

Sherlock stands in Molly's cluttered bedroom, in the narrow gap between her heavily draped pink bed and the wall of fitted wardrobes, and considers where to begin. The glass-topped dressing table, another fifty year old piece of furniture, is an immediate option. He perches on the end of Molly's bed, ignoring self consciousness, and pulls on white gloves. He has already examined items arranged on the surface, including the intriguing anti-ageing face cream (why? she is thirty-five, as he is, and looks younger. Surely no need for subterfuge yet) and the heap of golden hair pins. So: drawer number one.

He has already searched most of the rest of the flat. Molly's life has been revealed more sharply than years of acquaintance could have managed (or did manage). Her family photo albums, with many pictures of her dead father, are well thumbed. (Sherlock rarely chooses to view his equivalent photographic records. The past is dead and anyway his brother guards the family relics).

Other photo albums are dusty, their self adhesive pages yellowed and stuck together. Sherlock finds photos from university (none of him; they did not socialise) and lots of pictures of her boyfriend of the time. More recently there are pictures of Molly on holiday in various locations with another boyfriend, a tall, dark haired man who is good-looking by conventional standards. He looks familiar. Sherlock discovers his name and googles it. He is a physicist, specialising in space science. He has occasionally been on television. The university boyfriend now works for the UN. Hmmn.

Molly has many, many drab items of clothing, and a fair selection of the sparkling dresses too. The prairie boots are kept behind the bedroom door, ready in a moment should the big sky call.

He would not hesitate to investigate the underwear drawer of any other suspect and he does not hesitate now. It is the place where people, especially women, keep secret items, in the misplaced belief that social taboo makes theft less likely. Sure enough Molly has a tiny box containing objects nestled in tissue paper: a lock of hair, a signet ring (her father's?) and anther ring, smaller and brand new, set with a single diamond.

Oh.

He never knew that.

And at the very back, folded up small as if she is ashamed of it, or terrified of its discovery, is a magazine clipping from one of Sherlock's early successes - a puff piece put together without his co-operation, mainly consisting of quotes from 'friends' and a large photo of Sherlock aged twenty-six, looking moody.

He folds it back up carefully and closes that drawer. Nothing to see there. No conclusions to be drawn. Moving on.

-Perhaps a cup of coffee, though. Just to stimulate thought. Appropriate thought.

He has now regained a suitable mindset and is in the bedroom, faced with the dressing table. The first drawer is open. More evidence of Molly's life.

He is discarding items as useless, while simultaneously mentally cataloguing them (costume jewellery, unpleasantly fragranced make up, contraceptive pill with a ten year old prescription date) when his phone buzzes. He does not want to stop, but it might be John with a progress update.

It is not.

It is a text from Molly. _Are you coming over tonight? It would be nice to see you. After your case? M x_

He ignores it. She has not texted until now - three days' silence, to his surprise - but if she had he would have ignored that too. He must not see or interact with her. He is busy. And - he cannot think. His brain is sluggish and resistant. Coffee does not help. Nothing helps.

There is a link between Molly, Dee, and the unidentified dead girl in the lake. He ought to tell Lestrade, but so far he has not. Every moment he hesitates it damages him, not just his professional reputation, but his mind, his... heart. Telling Lestrade is the right thing to do. Why does he not do it? Because of feelings for Molly. Because his gut tells him she cannot be involved. Not knowingly. But the evidence refutes that.

It was all coming together but now the knife is falling again, shredding his tranquillity, tearing him apart.

The pink-sequined dress was not in Molly's flat. The bag was there but not the dress. Sent for cleaning? His search for a cleaner who could deal with those acetate sequins only threw up the fact that even at the level of haute couture, that kind of dress is not washed. "You can sponge it down very carefully," he was told in Knightsbridge, by a neat man in a shiny asymmetrical suit. "If you wash it, it'll be ruined, just ruined."

"So if it was blood soaked?"

"It will have to stay that way."

And then Sherlock was ushered to the door.

The pink dress cannot have been cleaned. This gave him hope. But then in the lab, the two sequins matched. So did Molly wear a dress covered in dried blood?

The idea makes him sick. Luckily he does not eat when on a case.

Molly may still be unaware. The dress may have come from a shop, a market, eBay. But if it was damaged, she would have seen. She can tell the history of a garment from a single sequin. If the dress had been worn by a murder victim, Molly would notice.

So now Sherlock is back at the flat in Dean Street, searching for any other kind of clue. Molly is at work and he has several hours. He can take his time, be methodical and patient.

Except that he does not feel patient. He feels wild. Hopeless. Lost, again. And now she has texted him. She understands about the case. Has left him alone for three days. He feels a pang, at this. It could be perfect. She grasps his relationship with the work. She makes no time-consuming demands. She has her own work. And her text, if he has correctly understood what was not expressed, was about a wish for more intimacy. He understands that, too.

He hears the key in the front door. She is back. Far too early. He has about ten seconds to -

The latex gloves are in his pocket and he is in the kitchen holding the kettle under the tap as she walks in.

"Sherlock!" Her face is pink with delight. She is remembering them in bed together. So is he, now. "How are you? How's the case?"

"Not good," he says, in truthful reply to both questions.

She has a bundle in her arms. A large, heavy bundle wrapped in plastic. "Can you open my bedroom door for me please?" she asks. "This is a bit cumbersome –"

He does. She staggers past him and dumps the bundle on her bed where Sherlock was just sitting, hiding the distinct dent he left in the duvet.

"I thought you were at work," he comments, still scanning the room for anything helpful. He will have to leave now, return tomorrow. He cannot be around her until he has resolved this.

"I was. Had to come home early to bring these." She touches the bundle gently. "Dee's dresses. Her sister came to the lab. Dee told her where I worked. Her sister said Dee would have wanted me to have them."

Sherlock stares. Now Molly has the dead girl's dresses.

Yet her eyes are honest. Every part of him screams that he must not trust instinct, only evidence, and yet he cannot bring himself to suspect her. He must find the connection between her and the killer, that is all.

-And he can't do that with her standing so close to him, in her bedroom, her eyes bright and full of affection.

She reaches for his hand and he flinches away.

She frowns. Not at the flinch. "What- Why have you got gloves with you?" she asks.

The latex gloves are sticking out of his pocket.

Oh. "Work."

"They've been worn," she says slowly. "You've just taken them off. You're working... now."

She blinks a couple of times. Her mouth is small. "You've been going through my things!" There is anger in her tone, but her eyes show hurt.

"The case," Sherlock says. "I need to eliminate you - the pink dress –"

But her face has changed. Horror. Disappointment. Now she looks as she did for all those years. "You," she says, and the rest does not emerge for a few breaths. "Is that what this is about? The unidentified girl?"

"Yes," he says, and then realises too late that that was not what she meant.

She goes pale, even her lips. She looks dreadful. "Get out," she says. She swallows, turns her hands to fists at her sides. She steps towards him. "Get. Out."

"You misunderstand me –"

"I asked you to do one thing, Sherlock. One thing. I didn't ask for love and marriage or even hand holding and dates. I asked one thing, for you not to treat me like dirt, and what is the very first thing you do? The first thing! -If you wanted to investigate me, you could have just got a warrant. But you turned up here pretending to be my friend, winning me over, making me trust you again, what, just so you could have more free time to ransack my things? And then you - We _slept_ together. You _let_ me _sleep_ with you! What was that? Just a lucky bonus for you? Get out. Get _out_!"

She is shrieking at him. (Her face is full of fury and sorrow.)

"Molly –"

"No! I don't want to hear your lies!" She is sobbing and shouting and trembling. He has to explain but he can't, not when she is like this. And he has just realised something very obvious.

She was given the dresses, Dee's dresses and that shows him another option for the pink dress too. It is not hers. It was given to her. Perhaps lent to her. And there are not many candidates for the loan of antique dresses suitable for old fashioned songs. His brain was so entangled in his new connection to Molly that he couldn't see this obvious alternative scenario. But now Molly will not hear him even if he tries to tell her.

She is white faced and her cheeks are running with tears, but her voice is steady. "Sherlock. Just - go."

He goes.

* * *

**Author's note:**

_Heard it through the grapevine _- Marvin Gaye. Also previously done by Gladys Knight. Take your pick!


	21. Believer

Oh! Carol  
I am but a fool  
Darling, I love you  
Though you treat me cruel  
You hurt me  
And you make me cry -

* * *

"Ok. I'm here. What's wrong?" John winces at the London noise, the gritty air, the humidity and the hot air howling from the train's diesel engine. John is in shirt sleeves. Sherlock is in his coat, as always.

The slope from the platform at Euston Station is crowded with commuters coming own towards them, out of London. Sherlock claps John on the shoulder and gives him a grim smile of greeting, then draws him away to the side and gives a nod to the station security guard, who pushes open the door leading directly out onto Eversholt Street. "I need your... social skills."

"What? Why?" John hefts his overnight bag onto his shoulder, strides beside Sherlock into the early evening sunshine. The sky is swirling with heavy grey clouds, but beneath them the sun squeezes through for a blast of summer.

"We're going to a nightclub. I need to talk to some people." Sherlock weaves between hurrying commuters, his coat tails seeming to sweep them aside in his wake.

"Sherlock. You've worked alone for years before you knew me. And since I've been gone you've carried on. Why do you need my help now? I'm not saying no. I'm just concerned."

Sherlock grabs John's arm at the pedestrian crossing. Traffic roars past two feet away and cyclists add a silent threat to people trying to cross while the lights are still red. Sherlock realises that he is trembling. He gains control of himself before speaking. "It's about Molly."

John gives him a long look. John can read Sherlock, and John has instantly seen more of the problem than Sherlock was about to tell him. But that's all right. It might save time.

They cross the road, heading for Baker Street.

* * *

"All right. What's the plan?" asks John.

"Find out who lent Molly that dress. Also, find Molly and tell her... I think she's in danger." Sherlock grimaces. This is his fault. He has been too slow. And he still has no answers.

They are in a cab, on their way from Baker Street to the club. John has donned a fresh shirt in what appears to be a casual style. Sherlock, as a huge concession, has ditched the coat. He is still in his suit though. You can never be overdressed when you are dressed well.

"Why can't you just call Molly? –Or text her," John adds, knowing that Sherlock is allergic to social phone calls.

"I have. She isn't answering." A thought strikes him and he pulsl ut his own phone. "Lestrade. Yes. Have you still got Molly Hooper's phone? Right." He ends the call and turns back to John. "Just a thought. Molly texted me this morning but hasn't returned my calls since. I wanted to make sure her phone was actually in her possession, as far as we know."

"Calls? Plural?" says John. "What's going on? What did you do, Sherlock?"

Sherlock gestures dismissively. "She misunderstood me. She's upset. That's not the point. Two people who handled that pink dress are now dead."

"Are you saying it's cursed, or something?" John's eyes crinkle.

"What? No, of course not. I'm saying that someone has some very personal stake in that dress, and is willing to kill to see their attachment realised." Sherlock sighs as a dull but humid London slips past the cab window. "Molly might well be at this place. I hope she is. She won't talk to me. If she is there, John, you stay close to her. Don't let her leave until we've solved this."

"I'm on it," says John. "And Sherlock - it might not be that bad. She might have calmed down a bit."

"From thinking I used our years of friendship to solve a case and get her into bed for the hell of it? I don't think so."

He glares out of the window, saying "I can't think about it now."

John's hand lands on his shoulder. "We'll sort it," he says. "Both things. We'll fix it."

"Yes," Sherlock says. The marvel of friendship. It does seem possible, now that John is here. John pats his shoulder and Sherlock tolerates it. "There's the club."

The club is in Chinatown, tucked away between a travel agent's and a betting shop. It is called the Beehive, its main space is down some plain wooden stairs, and it is packed. Tables set with white cloths and faux oil lamps are arranged in front of a small stage. There are TV screens, including one on the floor at the feet of the girl currently singing. No band. It is karaoke, Sherlock thinks. Singing to the backing track of songs. But he has seen Molly sing for a band, called Gin and Tonic.

Sherlock sends John to get drinks and chat to the owner, while he busies himself with a look round.

He asks guileless questions of the customers at the tables and crowded around the walls, and after a while Gin and Tonic, or part of them, is pointed out to him. Sherlock sees a man of thirty with blond hair oiled into an old fashioned style, sitting alone at a table near the front, slumped over a pint of lager. It is not the man Sherlock once saw kissing Molly goodnight through a taxi window. (That man is serving at the bar, and being quizzed by John.)

"Evening," Sherlock says, and sits down without being asked. "are you part of Gin and Tonic?"

"Yeah. Tony." He is carefully dressed - the suit is old, like Molly's curtains, but made from high quality fabric and far more stylish. Suddenly Sherlock can see the point of vintage.

"Do you work with Billie Rae?" he asks Tony.

"Yeah." Flat vowels. Essex. Large hands, calloused around the pint. Trade, skilled - no builder's muscle beneath the well-cut suit. And no sun-tan. He works indoors. Electrician? Gas fitter? The atmospheric club lights hinder deductions.

"She's great, isn't she?" Sherlock enthuses. "I love what she does. So talented."

"Who are you?" Tony demands. He is quite drunk. Four pints, and Tony is a regular drinker, Sherlock estimates. Four is enough to slip up, not so much as to render him useless.

Sherlock starts to speak but then John plonks drinks down on the table saying "We're fans. Seen her a couple of times, didn't know she was a regular here." He has been doing his research at the bar, then. The owner - Phil, Sherlock recalls reluctantly - is a true fan of Billie Rae.

John introduces himself, shakes hands with Tony and asks many earnest questions about Gin and Tonic and vintage karaoke. Sherlock watches as Tony's resentment drains away.

They establish that Billie Rae is great, is talented and, in those skin tight dresses she wears, utterly gorgeous. John slides a cautious look at Sherlock, which Sherlock ignores.

Tony becomes lively. He describes Molly in great detail, especially her voice, eyes, hands and bottom. Sherlock sits still, continuing to ignore John's attempts at reading his body language, and watches Tony's.

Tony is in love with Billie Rae. There are many signs. He rubs his fingers together as he talks about her, obviously a substitute for the sensation he really wants which is the touch of her flesh against his own. His eyes defocus and flicker as, in memory, he watches her mouth and throat rather than eyes amd forehead as is normal in a purely platonic relationship, and lastly but most significantly, he fidgets constantly when mention is made of her physical appeal because his trousers have become too tight through a physical arousal response.

This might be lust. But it is not, it is love, because the object of the arousal is not even in the room and yet Tony reacts as if Molly is sitting right beside him.

Sherlock glances at the bar. The club's owner - Phil - is standing looking over the heads of his customers, right at their table. He is looking at Tony with some concern. But the hostility is all for Sherlock.

Sherlock lifts his chin a fraction. Gives Phil a faint nod. Phil nods back. Confirmed, then. Phil believes he has some claim to Molly. And he must have seen Sherlock, that night in the rain, because he is displaying classic rivalry behaviour.

As is he himself, Sherlock discovers, and turns back to John. Ignore Phil. Phil is a nonentity. John is still trying to establish facts about Billie Rae, Dee and karaoke.

Tony points to the silhouette poster of Billie Rae and John boggles. "Wow," he says faintly.

He shoots Sherlock a look which Sherlock cannot interpret. Surprised? Molly is surprising. But Sherlock has always known (suspected) what was inside Molly's shapeless clothes. Impressed? It is not impressive to sleep with someone and then alienate them before you have had a proper chance to do everything.

He returns his attention to Tony. The man is a wreck. Apparently the dead girl, Karen/Dee, was a friend. A clothes nut. Polka dots. Brilliant with restoring vintage pieces, funny, beautiful, full of life, et cetera. Yet... what Sherlock can see is not grief. Not at all. It is fear.

Sherlock is something of an expert on fear. As John blathers on about sixties music, Sherlock focuses on Tony and something distinctive leaps out about his tradesman's hands. "How did you get those scars?" he asks, interrupting the nostalgia session about the days when music was real music, whatever that means.

He points. John looks too, at a dozen tiny white lines on the back of Tony's hands, up to his knuckles.

"Oh," says Tony, putting his hand under the table. "Welding scars. I'm a plumber." He shrugs, laughs awkwardly.

"Mmn," says Sherlock. Welding scars appear on the hand closest the flame and are faint. A more typical tell is the lack of hair on the scars are a quarter of an inch long, and on both hands.

"Where is Billie Rae tonight?" John asks, looking around hopefully. "We were hoping to see her -sing." Clearly John is having trouble adapting to Molly's alter ego. Sherlock has no such difficulty. He saw her doing Piece of my heart in a slinky gold dress with a decade of yearning in her voice, and he became a believer. And he must not recall that now because it will damage his thought processes.

"She left. To see a friend." Tony clams up again.

"What friend?" snaps Sherlock, dropping all appearance of geniality. Tony jumps, wild eyed.

"What friend," John repeats, more kindly.

Tony looks uncomfortable. "Vic," he says.

Sherlock frowns. "The security guard at the aquarium," he says. "Billie Rae came here and then left to see Vic?"

It makes no sense and things which make no sense set his internal alarm ringing.

"She got a message," says Tony. He is sweating. Pale. "She had to go." He grabs his pint again and the white scars blend into the skin stretched over white knuckles. "And now she's gone." With every word he is falling to pieces.

Sherlock, ignoring John's amazement, reaches across the table to pat Tony's hand. "It's all right," he says. "Just talk to me. Where is Gin? What kind of knife is it? Stanley knife?"

Tony gapes. Looks at his hands, then covers his face with them. "She hurts me," he mumbles, and tears leak through his fingers.

"I know," says Sherlock gently. "Tell me where she is. We can stop her."

John's eyes question Sherlock but there is no time. "Vic," says Tony.

"The aquarium," says Sherlock. Tony nods. Sherlock springs to his feet, then pauses, his hand on the table. "Why?" he asks. "Why does Gin want to hurt Vic?"

"Because he is taking Billie Rae away from me," says Tony.

Sherlock frowns. Scenarios scroll past his mind's eye. He nods. "Get Phil over here," he tells John. "Tell him not to let Tony out of his sight." John vanishes towards the bar. Tony shakes his head but Sherlock says, "Yes. This ends here. And there will be no more fear."

He heads for the door, and hears Phil encouraging Tony behind him. At the kerb a cab appears. Another benefit of his slight fame. "South Bank," Sherlock says, impatient as John emerges from the Beehive.

"It's Gin," says Sherlock as the cab door slams.

"How do you know?" John asks.

Sherlock inspects his own hands, free of marks. "Domestic abuse," he answers shortly. "Men use their fists, their physical advantage. Women use weapons. Gender differences in crime. And the female murder weapon of choice, statistically, is poison."

He rings Lestrade. "The tests on Karen Frobisher. Your people put cause of death as a stab wound to the neck. They were wrong. Check for toxins. And check our unidentified girl's paperwork too. The tox tests came up with nothing but I believe there will be something out of the ordinary." He ends the call before Lestrade can object.

"Gin's something to do with dentristry," says John.

Sherlock stops. Many horrifying scenarios present themselves. "Anaesthetic," he says."Allows a woman to overpower her victim."

John taps the glass behind the driver's head. "Quick as you like, mate,' he says. "Our friend's in trouble."

Sherlock calls Molly, shakes his head. "Let me,' says John, and dials from his phone. "Straight to voicemail."

Sherlock rings the aquarium. It is closed but Sherlock hangs on the line.

The man who eventually answers is not Vic. He is younger, ruder and very hostile.

"We need to find Vic," Sherlock says "Where is he? He is in trouble."

"Not here," says the guard.

"On a different job tonight. And this isn't your personal answering service." Phone slam.

"Damn," says Sherlock. "We need to find him."

"What firm does he work for?" john asks.

Of course. Sherlock closes his eyes and recalls Vic's security guard uniform. Knox services. He rings them. The person on the switchboard may have received the impression that Sherlock is associated with the police, but at any rate, at the end of this call Sherlock raps the glass between him and the cabbie and says, "Change of plan. Hays Galleria, please."

"That'll be shut an'all," says the driver, but the cab turns on a sixpence and heads east along the river.

* * *

**Author's note: **

_Oh Carol!_ _- _Neil Sedaka


	22. Spasmodic rhythm

_Hands, touching hands_

_Reaching out, touching me, touching you_

* * *

Molly didn't expect the two storey high wrought iron gates to be open and they are not. At nine-thirty pm, Hays Galleria is shut, its upmarket restaurants finished with their after-work trade and its niche shops and cafes done with enticing money from tourists come to marvel at this old dock converted into a magnificent airy leisure space on the south bank of the River Thames.

She glances back at the road. The taxi has already roared away, back to more lucrative streets. Daytime is fading to that midsummer twilight which will last until eleven o clock.

She gets her phone out of her handbag and dials Vic. His message was so odd. He is not one for texting, only the occasional joke he's read in the paper, or to check if she will be at the Beehive. And then this. _Billie Rae help I am at the Galleria._

It is one of his workplaces. She sometimes jokes with him about which fancy tourist trap he is guarding tonight.

No reply. She stuffs the phone in her handbag. There is another entrance, on the river side. She doesn't fancy the walk in these heels. When she got Vic's message, she was about to get up and sing, something stupidly positive and upbeat. If she did longing and heartbreak tonight, she was going to start blubbing. Not very Billie Rae. _No kidding,_ whispers Billie Rae in Dee's voice. _Your mate and your man in one week, it's a miracle you're still upright, girl_.

But she is not thinking about Sherlock, not now. She has been a fool, the worst kind, because she knew, she _knew_ what he was capable of, the acting, the faking, the lies to further his own goals, and yet still she let him in. She gave him that door key. He never even had to ask. She is so stupid, no, not stupid, just self delusional.

But in bed -

_Yeah_, says Billie Rae, _because in bed is the best place to find out if a bloke loves you._

She blurted it out to him, in a moment of passion, and he did not reply.

Stupid.

The advantage is all his, as always, and he has used it, used her, fully.

_Still, at least you got it out of your system_, says Billie Rae, or is it Dee? _And it was a bloody good shag._

_Shut up, _says Molly. _It was not about the sex, it was never about that. I love him and now he knows it and is laughing at me because he was doing it all for a case._

_Men eh?_ says Dee.

_No_, says Molly. _Not men. Just him. Only him, and now I know that he is a liar, just when I thought he was ...sharing something real with me._

She still resists acceptance of this discovery. Months of Sherlock under her roof, cautiously settled, seeming content.

Why could it not just be that, be a friendship which grew into bed sharing? He seemed so ... happy to be there.

She is going to start crying if she carries on that line of thought, so she stops. And sees the miniature gate set within the giant one, standing ajar.

* * *

The yellow brick walls of the old quayside storehouses are joined overhead by an enormous arched glass roof. Where boats once docked for offloading a large percentage of Britain's imported dry produce, a concrete floor provides wandering space between the shops and cafes. And in the centre, anchored in a shallow pool, is a bronze sculpture of a boat, with strange vanes and masts, and oars jutting from it, and a bulbous face on its prow.

Molly has never been inside before. "Vic?"

Her heart beats quickly. Why did she come? -Why did he call her? If he is in trouble he should have called the police. All the types of trouble a security guard might be in, are situations Molly cannot deal with.

She came because Tony was creeping her out with his odd revelations about Gin. She came because she wanted to help, and wanted Vic to be in the kind of trouble she could fix, as unlikely as this seems.

She came because Sherlock keeps ringing her phone and she wants to be active whilst ignoring it, not passive.

Why does Sherlock keep ringing? She has set her phone to Silent. Is Sherlock trying to apologise?

She already knows that she will listen to what he has to say. She is not able to bear grudges, and certainly not against him. A Sherlock apology would be almost unprecedented. So she will listen. Just not yet.

_He wants to win you back, _suggests Billie Rae. _Shut it_, Molly says. _He might want to win me over, but it will be for his purposes, not because he is capable of understanding how he hurt me._

She is going off topic again. "Vic!"

Molly walks further inside, around the prow of the ship, towards the river. Her feet are crippled by these heels. She is still in her gold dress from the Beehive, her Parka thrown over it. She treads slowly, worrying about trespass. The ship looms over her.

She sees Vic then, lying on the ground beside the bronze ship.

She runs, in spite of the heels, and lands beside him, her knees cracking on the cold floor, her gold dress rasping as sequins rip away like scales under a fishwife's blade. "Vic!"

He is breathing, but unevenly. His eyes are closed. There is no sign of injury but he is unconscious. Molly undoes his Knox Services jacket and checks his pulse, and in doing so sees a red dot on his neck. A spot of blood after a puncture would. He has been injected with a knockout drug, or something which has had that effect even if it was not designed for that purpose.

This is no random mugging. Molly's brain races. This is a premeditated crime. And she has just walked into the middle of it.

Molly grabs her phone, still trying to rouse Vic. She dials 999, thinking, has it changed to 112 now, but even as a voice answers, the phone is knocked from her hand. It skitters across the concrete as Molly jerks her head up.

Gin is standing over her wearing the raspberry pink dress and white boots, holding a Stanley knife. Her hair is now black, and is on wonky. A wig, Molly thinks. The rest of her mind is blank as she looks up at Gin.

"It isn't him," Gin hisses, and Molly cringes at the hollow wheeze in her voice.

"Him what?" Molly asks. Her phone. Is it still connected to the emergency services? She scrabbles to get to her feet, but Gin thrusts the blade in her face and Molly flinches back.

Gin says, "Your fancy man. Your lover. Your man from the aquarium." She leers at Molly. "How dare you betray us like this?"

_You're weak_, Molly thinks. _I am younger and stronger but I am in this stupid dress and shoes. And you've got that knife, a very short blade but I still don't want it in my face._

She wriggles as if to get a better look at Gin, to answer her comment, and slips her feet out of the high heels. _Be sneaky, chuck_, whispers Dee.

"What are you talking about?" Molly asks, playing for time. Delay. That's the classic strategy. Spin out the time before the attack and there is a chance someone will come.

"You know damn well! Gloating messages to your little friend, _I kissed him, I'm seeing him tonight, the aquarium_, oooh." Gin jabs again and the blade snags Molly's hair. Molly goes cold, wrenches free, but she has not been cut. "I thought I could rely on you. I thought you were so bloody lovelorn. Your singing. But you're a liar, a little slut like Dee, you're no better than any of them. You're not good enough for him."

Molly adds Gin's knowledge of her texts to Dee, to the quarter inch blade on the Stanley knife, to the sequined pink dress which is saggy and oversized on Gin's bony frame, and gets the dead girl in the lake.

Deduction. Sherlock would be proud.

"Why do you care who I see?" she asks. She knows. Tony told her. Gin is looking for her own future replacement. But Molly needs to act ignorant, to buy more time. She has to get up, on her feet. Gin will never catch her in a chase. And Molly is heavier than Gin, that raspberry dress did not go up past Molly's thighs. Molly could easily overpower her in close quarters - except for the knife.

And there is another problem: the frantic stab wounds on the dead girl, and the puncture mark on Vic's neck. Gin is frail but she was able to slash wildly, over and over, because the girl only struggled for a short while. Gin is a dental nurse. She has access to many injectable substances. Molly experiences a shiver right through her. These were Dee's last thoughts too.

_Sherlock_, she thinks. _Did you find clues in my flat, or anywhere? Please have found something which links Gin to Dee's death and brings you here right now._

Gin sneers, swipes at Molly again."Don't be stupid. Tony loves you. You should love him. You'd be perfect together, your voices are well matched, you look great in the gear, why did you have to go and spoil it..."

"You thought Dee was good for him," Molly says then. She is ready to spring up, her legs bent under her, concealed, she hopes, by the gold dress.

"That slut. She wanted his body, had no sense of commitment. No sense of forever. I thought you were different." Gin puts her free hand into her bodice, draws out a plastic syringe.

Vic moans.

"I thought your new boyfriend was Vic," says Gin, glancing at him. "Vic! I was pretty surprised. You're forever flirting though. I thought maybe it was possible, what with you being so desperate. But he made it crystal clear that you're just good friends. So tell me, who is this lover boy? Who have you ditched Tony for?" She rips the cap off the syringe with her teeth.

"Nobody," says Molly. "I haven't got a boyfriend." It comes out so bitterly that Gin has to believe her.

"Oh, a one night stand? No more than I expected of you, you little whore-"

Molly springs to her feet, Gin lunges with the knife, and at that moment the ship sculpture bursts to life. Water pours from the gunwale and the oars strike up a spasmodic rhythm, splashing water onto Molly's cheek. The ship's mouth clanks open and shut, and spheres whirl around on the protruding vanes.

Gin gapes round in surprise and Molly scrambles, barefoot, for her phone. Gin leaps after her, slashing, and Molly feels a sting across her calves as she stoops for the phone.

The connection is still active. "I'm being attacked, Hays Galleria," she babbles, hot liquid running off her legs.

Gin kicks her in the ribs. Molly gets up but now she is backed up against the fence around the pool, water spraying in her face and Gin has come close and has the syringe against the end of Molly's nose.

Oh god. Being cut. It is horrific. And Molly knows now there are two dead bodies.

Poison, anaesthetic, almost everything needs a period of time to take effect. She only has to resist, to remain conscious, for as long as she can during that time, when Gin will not be expecting it...

She puts her hands to her head. "Stop - Gin! Don't hurt me, please, stop!"

Gin's eyes are yellowed and sunken but she is lifting her syringe hand, ready to stick Molly as she cowers, cornered against the mechanical fantasy. Metal components clang and crash all around and the water pours down.

"Leave her!" Sherlock's stentorian command, distant at the gates. Molly sees him, slim in his black suit, John's square figure at his side. The pair break into a run.

_You're not going to hurt me, _Molly thinks, but she is thinking it at Gin._ Do it! _shrieks Dee.

Gin sees Sherlock and John, then turns back to Molly. Her mouth twists. "My last chance," she wheezes. "Last chance to stop you polluting Tony-"

Gin raises her arm, and Molly drags her right hand out of her hair and stabs Gin in the eye with the ruby pin.

* * *

**Author's note:**

_Sweet Caroline_ – Neil Diamond


	23. State of mind

_Each time I tell myself that I can't stand the pain _  
_You hold me in your arms and I start singin' once again _  
_So come on, come on, come on_

_Take it _  
_Take another little piece of my heart now baby_

* * *

"You're bleeding. Stay still." John steadies Molly, keeping her on the ground.

"I'm ok. Get Vic." The pain in Molly's legs is sharp, now that adrenaline is receding.

Sherlock has Gin, holding her easily as she shrieks and screams, blood gushing from her eye. The pin missed her eyeball but pierced the socket area. She is sagging in his grip, head dropping, eyes rolling. He curls his lip in disgust, trying to keep from body contact with her. That strikes Molly as strange, even as she herself is lying on the floor six feet away, with John checking her, peering at her eyes, examining her split calves, that Sherlock is so repulsed by this woman. Surely Gin is just another murderer?

Sherlock is barking into his phone. He has put Gin down and she is slumped, whimpering, breath heaving. Sherlock snarls at her and carries on talking.

"Hold this against it," John tells Molly, sacrificing his handkerchief. She wads it and presses it against the backs of her calves.

John bends to Vic, checking pulse. "Ambulance," he says to Sherlock. "When?"

"Now," says Sherlock, and flashing blues reflect off the high glass roof of the Galleria. Sherlock is standing over Gin, blatantly not helping her although she is bleeding, worse than Molly. John beckons to the ambulance crew.

Sherlock has the knife and syringe. He has produced latex gloves - does he just have a set permanently in his jacket? - and is examining the level of fluid in the plunger. He swings round to Molly as the paramedics sprint to Vic and Gin, and says, "Did she inject you?"

"No," Molly says. "Just the knife, but Vic -"

"Yes," he says, dismissing her with a hand. The police arrive and Sherlock sweeps around the Galleria with them, expounding. Lestrade pulls up in a separate car and Sherlock explains everything again.

"Have you got someone to take you home, love?" a female police officer asks Molly.

"We'll take her," says John.

"No," says Molly quickly. "I'll ring a friend."

John gives her a funny look, but says nothing. He gets up after a moment and goes off to stand with Sherlock as Sherlock becomes impatient with Lestrade's gradual grasp of the story.

As Vic and Gin are carted away, and the female officer questions Molly, Lestrade and Sherlock's conversation moves within earshot. Lestrade says to Sherlock, "How did you know who it was?"

Sherlock says, "Sequins," and looks at Molly. She looks past him. It seems he found a raspberry pink sequin in his bed after she spent the night in it. Sherlock does not elaborate, but Molly can almost hear the cogs spinning as Lestrade fills in the blanks. So much for dignity, for keeping her mistake quiet.

John returns to check on her, the police seem done for the moment, and Molly says bluntly to Lestrade, "Can I go now?"

Her wounds have been dressed and she has answered all the questions and it is practically midnight.

"Sure," says Lestrade. "Sherlock will take you."

She stares at Lestrade sullenly, avoiding eye contact with Sherlock, and takes out her phone. Dials with angry stabs at the screen. "Phil? Yes, it's me. Please can you come and get me?"

Her voice cracks on the last word and she hears only the start of Phil's concern before tears spurt from her eyes. Then Sherlock's hand wraps around her phone and whisks it away. "Hey!" she protests, but he is striding away, and bound like this, her injured legs won't work.

"Phil. Sherlock Holmes. Is Tony still with you? Keep him there, the police are on their way." He flicks his fingers at Lestrade's junior officers in a way that makes Lestrade scowl. "Molly is safe. She's here with us. No, no need. Thank you."

He pockets Molly's phone and stalks to where the crime scene is now being photographed.

"Sherlock!" Molly squeaks, but she is too weak and shocked and _crying_ and he does not even notice.

"Easy," says John, back at her side. "We'll take you home. Just me, if you're not up to Sherlock."

She gives a short, bitter laugh. "He's far too busy anyway. This is his favourite part, where he gets to tell everyone how brilliant he is."

John frowns and says mildly, "But he _is_ brilliant." He tilts his head side to side. "He just saved your life. And Vic's."

Molly closes her eyes. "That's not a permanent excuse though, is it?"

John puts his arm round her shoulders, gives her a squeeze. "Molly. He was frantic when he couldn't get hold of you. He made the cabbie go the wrong direction down one way streets."

"He must have thought the case was getting away from him," she says leadenly.

"And he was happy when - after -" John stumbles a little at this, but Molly knows after what. "He sent me silly texts."

Her heart clenches, at that. "John - stop. I know you want to help, but -"

"He cares for you," John says. "I think he -"

"Stop!" Molly says. It comes out far too sharply, and she sighs in despair. "Sorry. But just - please -"

Sherlock breezes up, peeling off the gloves and looking pleased. "Look," he exclaims, as John helps Molly to her feet. Molly turns in the direction of Sherlock's pointing finger.

Lit by fluorescent reflections from the other side of the water, a trail of gold is scattered on the floor around the bronze ship, which is silent again.

Bright droplets of sunlight on the ground. But it is night.

"Sequins," says Sherlock, and looks at Molly. His face is expectant, the face he has when he assumes everyone else has completely kept up with him.

Luckily Molly generally has.

She sighs. "My dress is wrecked," she says. She looks down at it. Maybe it is time to try some of those polka dots instead. They have got to be easier to take care of.

Sherlock gazes warily at her.

"It's just a dress," Molly tells him. "It doesn't mean anything."

He continues to stare at her, a sideways glimmer. She narrows her eyes and looks right back. _You look, Sherlock, look all you want. I will not be messed about, by you, by anyone. You only scraped the grade this far because you were interesting. And good looking._ _But you're on a warning right now and you'd better get your deductive act together before I really lose patience._

His eyes widen. His mouth snaps shut.

They glare at each other until John clears his throat.

"I'll take Molly home," John says.

Sherlock's face creases. "What? No, don't be ridiculous. I'll take her."

"Molly might prefer -"

"I am here you know," Molly says. She slings her handbag over her Parka. "Help me get to a cab. Please."

John turns to her but Sherlock is faster. He scoops her into his arms, and strides off towards the melee of police cars. She winces in anticipation of pain, but he is avoiding her injuries.

In seconds she is in the back of a police car, and Sherlock is climbing in the other side. The car lurches forward.

Molly blinks. "What about John?"Dark streets blur past the windows. They are on a bridge, the Thames unseen below.

Sherlock frowns. "John."

"We've left him behind!" she snaps.

"He's fine." Sherlock is wired, alert, once again in post-case mode.

"He is not fine! How can it be fine when you just forget all about him? He's your friend and you've just abandoned him without so much as a second thought! How can you not even care? What's the matter with you, Sherlock?"

She shuts her eyes and tears leak out between her lashes. The car swerves around corners and she is jolted from side to side. The police radio buzzes and crackles. Sherlock is thrown against her and away as the car rocks around steep curves. He is silent.

After a while the car reaches a straight stretch and Molly says, "I'm sorry. There's nothing wrong with you."

She opens her eyes. Sherlock is sitting stiffly with his face turned to the cab window.

He senses her changed silence and his head moves slightly. He takes out his phone. Texts. Puts it back in his jacket. "I have apologised to John and told him to go back to Baker Street."

"Sherlock - I'm sorry. It's up to you and John how you work it out. You know that's not what I was upset about."

He turns to her. His face is unreadable, but his eyes are shimmering. "Yes. I'm not a complete novice at interpersonal relationships."

She swallows. She cannot think what to say.

"Quick thinking with the pin," he says then. "Going for the eyes. Ruthless." His tone is admiring.

"Self defence classes," she says. "After the - attempted rape." Irritating, that her every past moment references him.

He absorbs this. "The pin... A totem, for you, for the singing. Billie Rae." Strange, to hear him say that name. But he has seen Billie Rae, too, that night at the Pinstripe."It went into evidence. You won't see it again for a while, I'm afraid."

"I don't need it," she says. "Like the dress. Billie Rae is just a state of mind."

It is true. And now Dee is there too, a fresh attitude to call on.

"Billie Rae is your alter ego. Why do you need one?" He is bright eyed and eager, leaning towards her.

She senses the keen mind glittering behind his eyes. The mind that can take you apart, segment you and put you away. "I'm not going into it now, Sherlock."

"An escape," he muses. "A secret. Why are secrets so thrilling? -The power, the control of the flow of information. Knowledge which the holder believes diminishes those who do not have it. But who would you want to diminish?"

She does not reply. His knee is against hers as he twists to face her, to soak up as much data as possible as he searches for the answer. He seems unaware, his body merely the container for the brain he considers to be his true self.

Sure enough he works it out in less than two seconds.

"_Oh_," he says in his Eureka voice. "But why would you want me to be less than I am?" Horror. "To be like - other people?"

"I don't," she says. "Calm down. I don't."

As if that were even possible. And if it was - she wouldn't change one thing about him. No matter what he does.

She closes her eyes as any vestiges of pride dissolve, and lets London rattle past. Sherlock is quiet beside her, but as the car slows, his warm hand curves over her sequined knee, a little tighter than is comfortable, and stays.

As they finally reach Dean Street, John is standing leaning against the wall of the Chinese travel agents'. Molly climbs the steps delicately. Sherlock unlocks the door with his key.

John raises his eyebrows at that.

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock demands.

John sighs and holds up a pair of vintage gold high heels. "Molly. You forgot your shoes."

* * *

The flat at Dean Street is too small for three people when two of them are fidgeting men who will not sit down. Molly shrugs off her parka and handbag in the hall, onto the chair usually reserved for Sherlock's coat, and limps into the living room. Her ancient sofa appeals, and so does peace and quiet, but Sherlock has just got a phone call from Lestrade.

"The police have arrested Tony. Accessory to murder." Sherlock does not seem happy about it. He throws his phone onto Molly's armchair. Molly is on the sofa, gradually easing into it, trying not to let her calves touch anything.

John expertly lifts her legs, props her feet on the table. "You knew it was something to do with Tony as soon as we started talking to him," John says. "How?" He perches on the sofa beside Molly.

"Fear," says Sherlock. He is laying his jacket over the back of Molly's armchair, moving aside his dressing gown which is already draped there. "Whenever Tony spoke about Gin – he was afraid of her. And then the scars on his hands, the evidence of violent abuse, and distinctly female abuse."

"Seen it before?" John asks.

"Many times," Sherlock says. "Women are ashamed to report abuse, to admit it. Men are mortified. It is not as common as male to female abuse but it is even less reported."

He glances at Molly. "Gin had control of Tony. What he did, where he went, who he saw. She liked him to look and dress a certain way. That haircut."

"She's dying," Molly says. "All this was her way of choosing who Tony was with after her."

"Cancer," says Sherlock. "Classic symptoms. Yes."

"Why didn't he just leave her?" John asks. He shakes his head. "He's a young, fit bloke. He obviously knew what Gin was prepared to do. Why didn't he just walk away?"

"Because he loved her," says Sherlock, "and love is a powerful weapon in the hands of the abuser." He wrinkles his nose. "More dangerous than hate. I have always said so."

He paces the room, constrained by Molly's shabby furniture and the fact that it is only twelve feet from here to the front door.

Molly is starting to really feel her legs now. Not in a good way. Gin's shallow cut has nonetheless torn into muscle. She shifts on the sofa, scrabbles in her handbag for the painkillers the paramedics gave her.

"You ok?" John asks her. His kind eyes are more sympathy than she can bear at the moment. She looks away, nodding vaguely. "You need to rest," he says. "I can pop back tomorrow if you like, check on you."

"I'll let you know," she says. The presence or absence of others is not on her priority list right now. Somehow she has to move from here to her bed. Once she has worked that out she intends to lie still for a very long time, possibly moving to ring in sick to work on Monday, possibly allowing them to guess.

"All right. Come on, Sherlock. Let's leave Molly in peace."

John stands up and through force of will - mostly staring - gets Sherlock to move too. Molly stays where she is. They can let themselves out.

"I'll just use your facilities if I may," says John then, still engaged in a mind-meld with Sherlock across the coffee table. Sherlock shrugs. John frowns, breaks eye contact and goes into the hall, shuts the bathroom door.

Molly looks at Sherlock. He is hovering. His jacket over the chair, his dressing gown in place, room under the coffee table for his shoes. She sighs. "Are you staying?" she asks, as if it is just another night, and he is simply here again, inexplicably, as he has been all summer.

He nods.

She nods back. He can find the duvet himself. She can't budge and it is not as if he doesn't know where it is.

John returns. Maybe he hoped to give them a chance to say goodnight, to part in private after their earlier discord, because he looks expectantly at Sherlock, who looks blandly back. John gives a slight eye roll.

"Right," he says. Gives Molly a kiss on the top of the head. "We'll be off."

Sherlock goes with him into the hall. They are now invisible behind the paperlike partition. "I'm staying."

"Sherlock, no. Let Molly get some rest."

"Yes."

"This is not a good idea. She is exhausted, in shock, in mourning for Pete's sake." John's voice is an urgent whisper.

"John, leave. I need to talk to Molly." Sherlock, in his normal brusque tone.

"She doesn't want to talk to you," John hisses.

"I need to tell her something." Sherlock demonstrating extreme patience.

"Just because she can't walk to get away from you does not mean this is a golden opportunity for a captive audience."

"Well - It does rather." Audible smile. Then serious: "But anyway I need to tell her something."

"I can _hear_ you," Molly says from the sofa.

Sherlock ignores this. "John. I want to say a few things. It's private."

John's reply is barely audible but the embarrassment comes through: "_Sherlock_. This is just not the moment for romantic revelation."

"Don't worry," Sherlock says acidly. "It is not at all romantic."

John sighs, then, and the front door slams.

Sherlock reappears in a flurry, crouches beside Molly. He scans her briefly, his lips parted, then rises again and disappears into the kitchen. She hears him rattling crockery, water running. She closes her eyes. The painkillers are in her hand. It seems too much effort to lift them to her mouth.

A clang. She opens her eyes and sees two glasses of purple Ribena on the coffee table. Sherlock lowers himself into his usual place beside her, and hands her a glass. He waits while she downs the tablets.

The Ribena is sweet, blackcurrants and nostalgia. Molly sips, watching over the rim of her glass as Sherlock drinks too. Their eyes meet.

"Time travel," he says, lowering his glass and inspecting the bright liquid. "Rather appropriate." His eyes flick up to hers and down again.

"You want to tell me something." He is tense, taut on the edge of the cushion, his fingers creating rapid, soundless rhythms against his glass.

"Yes." He hesitates. Scans her again. Seeking permission.

She shuffles, her feet angled across the table, so that she can face him without having to twist her neck. He turns to her too, his elbows on his knees.

It is late, she is shattered, there are many reasons why she should simply tell him that this ought to wait. But Sherlock is here, and even when she is tired, even when utterly drained, even without Billie Rae, Molly has always been able to face him.

"All right," she says. "I'm listening."

* * *

**Author's note:**

I have shamelessly stolen the phrase 'his Eureka voice' from Axemeaboutaxionomy on AO3, because it is so good. Check out 'Unexpected effects', a johnlock fic by her! Also 'Wild kingdom', hilarious.

_Piece of my heart_ - Erma Franklin


	24. Still improving

_How well I remember_  
_The look was in his eyes_  
_Stealing kisses from me on the sly_  
_Taking time to make time_  
_Telling me that he's all mine -_

* * *

Silence.

Sherlock takes a sip of Ribena, then steals a look at Molly.

His eyes - she opens her mouth but there are no words. His eyes hold a quiver she has never seen in him. His face is uncertain, the face she has glimpsed between experiments, the face he shows nobody, his sad face, his hidden face, his vanished face which is left behind when he takes himself far away from the present, where nobody sees him.

"Sherlock?"

"I'm fine. Listen." He takes a large gulp of Ribena and swallows. "At university I had a girlfriend. Her name was Carol. She was my tutor."

"Biochemistry tutor," Molly says.

"Yes. I loved her."

"Yes," she says, although this is not required.

He flinches. "She made it very clear that she loved me too."

"Right."

"Molly." His dark voice, warning.

"Sorry." She presses the glass against her lips. He needs to talk. She needs to shut up. Billie Rae is sitting wide-eyed with her hands over her mouth.

Sherlock takes a breath. "We were together. She was a strong personality. I liked that." He pauses. More deep breaths.

"You don't have to tell me anything –"

"I know. I'm going to though." He ruffles his hair with his hands, shakes his head impatiently. "Carol did everything for me. She let me know every day that she thought I was brilliant, unique, unlike any man she'd ever met or was likely to meet." He grimaces.

Molly watches him. In between the narrative she sees a nineteen year old boy, defiant and ashamed.

"She –"He stops. "It is impossible to describe," he says. "I - lost her love."He shakes his head. "I disappointed her. Constantly."

Molly stays still. Sherlock. His kisses. His shy, dry humour. His ability to understand everything around him, at a glance, the sheer speed and agility of him. -His lithe body and certain technique. "No," she says.

He blinks. "She said I let her down. She withdrew from me. I tried to –" He stops. "It's stupid. Now. So obvious. But it isn't, at the time. I have spoken to many people, and they all say. You don't realise. You genuinely don't. Because no one signs up for this kind of treatment. Nobody. You sign up for love. And you do love them. And they love you. They tell you every day and you don't understand how you can keep getting it so wrong because she is always so angry –" He stops, clenches his jaw, swallows Ribena. He is trembling.

Molly thinks of seeing Sherlock with his tutor, in the street. The way she kissed him. The way he succumbed, _blissful_, breaking Molly's heart, and now she sees it anew, _grateful_. "Abuse..." She whispers.

"People don't believe it," he says. "If you're a man. _How did she overpower you? Surely you could have just pushed her away._ But it's not like that." He glances at her. "It's not like that, with women either. They don't let men abuse them because they are physically weaker. It happens because they love them. And if you love someone, you can't believe they would ever hurt you. And you would do anything to try to fix it when they tell you something is wrong. You believe it must be you. That it is somehow your fault. They tell you it is and why would they lie? They love you. They keep saying so."

Molly has told him she loves him. He did not respond. Not surprising. "Did she hurt you? Physically."

"Slightly." He does not offer details. He is frowning.

Molly grips the glass, focuses on its smooth chill, to stop herself reaching for him, blurting out platitudes, vowing revenge on this person who dared to hurt him. Her jaw is set. _Keep schtum, chicken_, whispers Dee. _Let the man say what he's got to say._

Sherlock continues, "It takes a long time to realise the mismatch between the words and the actions. And then reality sets in. And you have to escape."

"Where did you go?" she asks. All she knows is that he vanished. Campus was bleak without him.

"France. A house in the country. Nobody there."

She thinks, counselling, support, friends, but he chose nobody. "Then what?"

He shrugs. "I came back. Made them give me my degree even though I didn't care about it. Started working on 'unsolvable' cold cases." He pauses. "That's all."

It is not all. She knows that as clearly as if she could see the years of recovery which followed his escape. But she doesn't say anything.

"I hated how stupid I'd been" he says. "I felt a complete fool. Swore I would never be stupid in any area of life ever again." He gives a small, wry smile. "The things you tell yourself when you are twenty."

"The cases." Of course. His brain, the part which betrayed him, brought firmly back into line. "Intellectual proof that you weren't stupid."

"That's it." He glances at her. "It didn't work all the time. I did seek out other escapes."

"I know." The drugs. She is glad she never saw this. And she knows, chemically, the pull which narcotics exercise on the brain. It is a permanent battle to deny them. Yet he (mostly) does not even smoke, these days.

They sit without speaking for a time. He does not offer any more revelations. The noise which is part of Molly's flat surrounds them: taunts and laughter from people rolling between clubs and bars; clattering, then shouts from the Chinese kitchen; the diesel rumble of taxis. The flat does not have double glazing and the street is, in effect, in the room with them. Molly has always liked this. Even if it means having to turn the telly right up.

She puts down her empty glass. Sherlock's is already pushed away to the far edge of the table. His feet (dark red socks, today) rest on the near edge. She did not notice him taking off his shoes but they are neatly aligned under the table. She reaches out and touches his ankle. "You haven't been single all this time," she says. She is fishing a little, which he will probably dislike, but there has yet to be a better moment.

"Basically," he says. He looks sideways at her. "There have been women," he says. "At one point I had a flatmate..." He shrugs. "You remember her."

"She stormed out. You said you'd never live with anyone again." God, did the red negligee belong to that stuck up woman? Hard to imagine. "She was really furious with you."

"She was expedient and didn't realise it." His tone is disparaging.

God. Expedient. "I don't want to be expedient, Sherlock. Whether I know it or not." Her hand on his ankle, the sharp bone softened by extremely fine-knit wool.

"No." He is watching her fingers. His lip twitches as if he is repressing words, actions.

"You came to see me after graduation," she says. "That was sweet."

He seems embarrassed by this. "Curiosity. I wondered if you were still there. I expected you'd be engaged, or something."

"I nearly was," she said. "But he was much too boring."

"A solitaire diamond engagement ring," Sherlock says with absolute conviction, and she knows, then, how far into her stuff he got that day.

She sighs. "No, that was later."

"The rocket scientist? Or the UN ambassador?" His tone is sardonic but his eyes are sharp-focused on her, monitoring her reaction.

"Don't laugh," she says. Is he - threatened? Surely he knows he trumps all of them. "I don't do boring men. I have plenty of offers. You probably don't believe me but I do."

"I got into a macho standoff with Phil," Sherlock says.

She splutters.

"He insinuated that you and he were an item," says Sherlock. "I let him know that was not the case."

"Oh god. I wish I'd seen it," Molly says weakly.

He grins suddenly, a flash of warmth. "I wish you had too. I surprised myself." He covers her hand with his. "Sorry. You were saying."

"Nothing. Just that I get bored very easily. I like a man to be surprising." His hand is strong, his touch warm, vibrating with certainty and permanence.

"Jim from IT," he says, raising his eyebrows.

"Not that surprising. Well. Maybe that surprising, but not in that way."

He laughs. "A romance with Moriarty?"

"No," she says, "with the man he could have been. Clever. Mercurial. Funny. Imagine all that, but working to help people instead of harm them."

"I don't have to," he says.

"I know," she said, "that was my point."

"Oh."

A little more silence, and continued hand holding, follows.

"It's bedtime," Molly says at last. She twines her fingers through his. "Are you coming in with me? Or staying out here?" She wondered, the other night, what would happen if she just asked. Now is the moment to find out.

"With you," he says. He gets up and pauses awkwardly beside the coffee table, but as Molly lifts her chin, his eyes gleam.

"I am injured," she reminds him firmly.

"I know." He helps her to stand.

She winds her arms around his waist. "Why did you tell me all that?" she asks, looking up at him.

"I was afraid. Statistics. About abusers." He waits for her to get it but this time she does not. "Most abusers were victims themselves in the past."

"You thought you would turn into - That you would become an abuser." Facts - the basis for his life - holding him back, preventing him moving on from this trauma. She presses her hands against his shoulder blades, keeping him close against her. "No."

"It is statistically likely. But now you know, you won't let me." He says it simply, as if he has fully solved the problem. He rotates his chin, relieving tension, revelling in her fingers on his back.

A horrifying responsibility. "I'm not sure your logic is right," she says carefully.

"Logic and love are not necessarily compatible," he concedes.

Did he just refer to love? As in, between them? She tries but cannot think about it now. "Let's -" she begins.

He picks her up, as easily as he did the first time, and carries her into her bedroom, elbowing the door open. "Do you need help getting undressed?"

Thank god the bed is made. And the dresses are mostly in the wardrobe, the occasional bit of netting or polka dot jutting from the sliding doors. "Maybe the zip -"

He sets her down and moves behind her. She smiles because they both know she can get in and out of any of her Billie Rae outfits without assistance. Still, it is nice to be helped. And her dress is classic Seventies manufacture, after the introduction of mass production but before any real quality testing: the zip sticks.

"How much pain are you in?" He asks with his breath on her neck and his hands, now, sliding the dress off her shoulders, down to her hips. He pulls her close to him, puts his lips to her shoulder.

She closes her eyes, steps gingerly out of the dress. "Not too much." His lips trail seductive fire on her skin and she is not going to ask him to stop.

"Excellent."

She laughs at his brisk tone and twists round in his arms. "You'll be needing help with those shirt buttons."

"If you say so." Relief is in his eyes as they resume familiarity.

"You might need to use a bit of ... technique," she says, her fingers on his collar. "To avoid putting weight on my legs." Standing is Ok. Lying flat in any configuration is going to hurt.

"Technique," he says. Bemused. Pleased, possibly. He runs his hands over her collarbone as she tugs his shirt off.

"You know what I mean. –I've never really known a man who had any. Technique." His belt buckle undoes in one easy motion. His trousers are Savile Row. No zip issues.

"When you say technique –" He is using it right now, unfastening her bra with one hand while the other whisks back her duvet.

"Men I've known. Things they did, it was all heat of the moment stuff. But you - everything you do is on purpose." She holds her arms up to him so that he can lift her onto the bed. She winces but pulls him down next to her anyway. What does she need calves for?

"Well, obviously." He pauses. "Almost always. The other night – " His voice is rough, shyness mixed with pride.

"Mmn yes..." When he totally lost the plot. She intends having that effect on him again, frequently. Billie Rae and Dee are whooping and she sends them on their way, nosy minxes. "Remind me how that goes again..."

"Happy to oblige..." He is beside her, pressing his bare skin against hers and stroking her hair tenderly. But his proximity is not encouraging to mere sweet romance.

She pulls him in, devours his mouth, lets him go. Molly does not need Billie Rae's assistance in this arena. She flicks her eyelids at him. "Have you started yet?"

She sees the light of challenge go on in his eyes. "Yes," he says, and his hand disappears under the duvet. She gasps. "Do try to keep up."

And that's it. Resolved. They are easy together again as if they have always known one another, as if sixteen years have simultaneously melted away and they are nineteen with no experience to start from... and they are thirty-five with all their histories and hang-ups but none of it matters.

"Sherlock," she says, as they try, in the aftermath, to establish a victor. (Probably Sherlock. She suspects this will become a pattern.) "Just so you know. So you know it was not just the heat of the moment, the other night. And just now. I love you. And what you told me doesn't change that. You're still the same person I saw on campus loafing around in black looking all meaningful and making me swoon with how gorgeous you were."

His eyes widen, and she adds, "You don't have to say it. If it's not your thing. But feel free to tell me how wonderful I am, any time." Billie Rae demands that much.

Sherlock sits up, casts about, his eyes searching. Dives over the side of the bed and comes up holding one of her flat brown boots. "These," he says. "The first time you walked into the lab in these I lost count of my pollen types." She stares - those old things? - but who is she to comment on attraction, when her lover's face is sweeter to her in slack, guileless sleep than in his waking taut good looks? Sherlock drops the boot again and wraps himself around her. "And - I never truly recovered from when you smiled at me."

Molly is nose to nose with him on the pillow. "Smiled. When?" She has spent a lot of the last two years not wanting to smile and then, after he came back, refusing to.

"In Anatomy of the Foot. First year undergraduate lecture." He whispers it.

She remembers, then. Did she smile? Probably. "You were so aloof. Clever. I couldn't believe you came and sat next to me."

"I'd never noticed you before," he admits. "Then you smiled. Things improved, after that."

"Still improving," she says. She shifts slightly and kisses him, just lips, and he sighs and holds her tight, his hair soft on her shoulder.

It will not always be like this, she knows. His phone will ring, he will race off without saying goodbye. Days will pass without contact. He will forget to call her, to see her, will forget that she exists, while he is inside the tunnel vision of his work. But he will come back. He came back, again and again through all those years, and never stopped wondering about her. She is, she is starting to understand, part of him, like the work is part of him. He will emerge, lift his head, see her and smile his secret smile. And even when he is on a case, he will appear at the hospital, doubtless expecting favours. And his research is endless. There will still be days in the lab, working side by side.

And apart from Sherlock, Molly has plenty to occupy her. Work, of course. That promotion, assuming she gets it. Music and song. And always, resplendent in a series of polka-dotted prom dresses, a reinvented Billie Rae, singing of longing, and hope, and unwavering love.

* * *

**Author's note**

This is the end, although there may be a totally self-indulgent epilogue later. Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it - please let me know!

The domestic violence thing, Tony in particular - It's a true story. I was sitting outside a pub in Slough one summer evening ten years ago when a distinctive Geordie accent caught my ear. I struck up a conversation with its owner, a fearsome looking bloke with tattoos and piercings. He was a Metro engineer, down in London to work on the Tube. 'A long way to move,' I commented. 'No family, girlfriend?'

As he hesitated over his response I noticed his hands. They were covered in sharp white scars. And something in his manner told me that he had not so much left his girlfriend but escaped. 'She hurt you,' I blurted out with that certainty you sometimes have. He nodded and actually cracked in front of my eyes, this big tough man. 'That's a Stanley knife,' he said, showing me the scars. 'I was lying in the bath and I yelled at her to get me another Stella. She came through and stuck the knife in me for disturbing her.' We talked some more and it was a story I knew well, but had never heard from a man. 'Did you tell anyone?' I asked. He shook his head. 'Not even your best friend?' 'I told my best mate,' he said. 'And he laughed. Yelled it out across the whole pub. How I let a woman beat us up.'

At that point he looked at me in a way that told me I needed to leave before he mistook my sympathy for interest. I gave him the number for Women's Aid and told him they would know what the men's equivalent was.

I knew domestic abuse existed against men as well as women. Controlling behaviour knows no gender boundaries. I didn't know then that men use their physical strength, looming over women, threatening or actually harming with fists, whereas women use weapons to threaten and control.

That year I met no fewer than eleven people, just in my ordinary course of life, who had experienced domestic abuse. A horrifying fact. I'm not so attuned to it now but every so often someone says something which doesn't make any sense, and my ears prick up.

Sherlock as victim might not ring true, but you genuinely cannot tell what 'kind' of person finds themselves in this situation. Educated, middle class people in good jobs are no less likely than others to experience it. But luckily not all victims become abusers, and I imagine that Sherlock, with his habits of strict self control and Molly at his side, can escape his past and be contented again.

All the songs for Vintage Heart are on the tube of you, under my username.

There will be more fics, here or on the Elementary board, plus, gradually, fictionpress for my original fics. More soon!

-Sef

_Son of a preacher man_ - Dusty Springfield


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